Word: celling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...developed increasingly sophisticated weapons to fight off microorganisms, which could mutate far more rapidly and thus evolve faster than higher forms of life. But it was probably not until about 600 million years ago, about the time vertebrates began to emerge, that the modern immune system, with its T cells and B cells, began to take shape. Once in place, these two cell types must have quickly evened the odds, since they have the remarkable ability of producing, respectively, a staggering variety of killer T cells and antibodies capable of attacking any invader...
...these immune cells produce such diversity was elucidated during the mid- 1970s by Immunologist Susumu Tonegawa, now at M.I.T., who in 1987 was awarded the Nobel Prize for his achievement. Tonegawa proved that the B-cell genes that dictate the production of antibodies occur in distinct segments. These pieces, like cards in the hands of a Las Vegas dealer, are constantly and speedily shuffled into different combinations. Coupled with mutations that occur as B cells divide into plasma cells, such genes, in theory at least, could account for as many as 10 million antibody variations. Other scientists have shown that...
...Dozens of disorders that once mystified doctors are now thought to be autoimmune. Among them: Type 1 diabetes, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. In these and other autoimmune diseases, the immune system mounts a selective and ferocious assault against parts of the body, destroying cells or cell components that it mistakenly identifies as alien...
...lasting nickname of Kim, the courageous boy spy in Rudyard Kipling's tale. He attended his father's schools, Westminster and Cambridge. Philby met Burgess, Maclean and Blunt at Cambridge but insisted that they were not recruited there. In Vienna, where he lived after graduation, he joined a Communist cell and was assigned lifetime duties: to return to Britain and penetrate its intelligence service...
...Ocean Spray, of Plymouth, Mass., is experimenting with a Soviet technique for extracting more juice and color from cranberries. The process involves briefly electrifying the berries with an oscillating current that ruptures cell membranes...