Word: glycerol
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...utilization of dietary fat. Most of the fat we eat is too . . . well, fat to be absorbed by the body. Before it can pass through the walls of the intestine into the bloodstream, each fat molecule must be split into its constituent parts: three fatty acids and the glycerol backbone to which they are attached. That is the job of two fat-cleaving enzymes, called lipases; one of them is found in the stomach and the other in the small intestine. Once the fat pieces make it through the intestine walls, they are reassembled and transported by the bloodstream...
...leaders in developing the new techniques is the New York Blood Center. The process begins the minute that the blood is donated to the center. Tubes of sample blood go to the laboratory for high-speed analysis and typing. Centrifuges separate out various blood components; the red cells, with glycerol added to prevent ice-crystal formation, are flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen at -320° F. Stored at this same temperature in thin stainless-steel flasks, they will keep for years. Says the center's Biochemist Arthur W. Rowe, who developed the technique: "We have taken a long step...
Organized Elements. The evidence of extraterrestrial bugs is less convincing. Meteorite connoisseurs have long known that rare meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites contain carbon compounds found in living organisms. Drs. Claus and Nagy got small samples of five chondrites, crushed them in water or glycerol on glass slides and examined them under the microscope. In three samples from two meteorites (Orgueil, which fell in 1864, and Ivuna in 1938) they found large numbers of "organized elements" that do not resemble any known mineral form. Their guarded conclusion: the organized elements may be microfossils that came to earth aboard the meteorite...
...Pratt and C. M. Stewart, Professor Smith was studying the hibernating larvae of woodboring beetles (Melandrya striata), trying to isolate the enzymes that digest the cellulose on which the insects live. But when he ground up the larvae and analyzed the juice, he was surprised to find a considerable glycerol content. Since the active summer larvae do not contain glycerol, he guessed that the larvae possessed a mechanism that reacted to cold by producing glycerol to keep their tissues from freezing in the Minnesota winters...
...check his theory. Professor Smith experimented on black carpenter ants, which are easy to collect in quantity. Hibernating adult ants proved to have as much as 10% glycerol in their bodies, but when the ants were gradually warmed up and became active, all of it disappeared. Chilling the ants for a few days at a temperature just above the freezing point restored the glycerol again. Ants of the same species found in warmer Maryland had no glycerol in them. But when taken to Minnesota, they did as Minnesota ants do, secreting their personal antifreeze against the cold...