Word: discoideum
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...Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass, (where the lecture-hall pointer is a fishing rod), a young Harvard biologist, Dr. John T. Bonner, is getting some of the answers. He works with a curious "slime mold," Dictyostelium discoideum, of the order Acrasiales, whose cells live alone and like it, but can also organize into a multicelled creature...
...Dictyostelium discoideum is no ordinary amoeba; its cells have hidden capabilities. Thousands of them will be grazing peacefully, paying no attention to one another. Then a few will drift together, forming a little clump. All the amoebae for microns* around stop their feeding and dividing. Like city people running to the scene of an accident, they swarm toward the growing center (see cut). Some join end to end and stream in gay little chains. By thousands and tens of thousands they pile up in a heap...
Many other biologists have studied Dictyostelium discoideum and related Acrasiales.* One slime-mold expert, Dr. K. B. Raper, of the Department of Agriculture, discovered (among other things) that the ultimate fate of the individual amoeba depends on how quickly it joins the aggregation. Latecomers form parts of the disc which supports the stalk; they die at the final breakup. The early birds form parts of the stalk itself; they die too. Only the middle-of-the-roaders, who arrive neither late nor early, live to continue the race...
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