Word: mitochondria
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Their investigations demonstrated that the muscle tissue was divided into two separate machines-an energy converter and a contraction mechanism. The energy converters, called mitochondria, were found to be 10 to 15 times as large as those of the non-flying insects...
...identity of the co-enzymes was unknown. Biochemist Lehninger discovered that the same enzymes which oxidize carbohydrates also oxidize fat. He found out where the burning takes place, too. In the cells of the liver (where half the body's fat is oxidized) are small, granular structures called mitochondria. The mitochondria, Lehninger announced, are the cellular power plants "or stokers or burners" for the combustion...
Last week Professor James Walter Wilson, 39, of Brown University uttered a glad cry. He had, he believed, discovered that at least one use for mitochondria is to breathe for their cells...
...admiring friend Dr. Alexis Carrel. To his pump Dr. Wilson hitched rabbit kidney after rabbit kidney, and through them perfused artificial blood composed of salt water, red corpuscles from beef blood and oxygen. Upon adding potassium cyanide, which displaces oxygen, Dr. Wilson through his microscope could see oxygen-starved mitochondria crumble while cells of the kidneys, and finally the entire kidneys died...
...absorption of oxygen until temperatures reached the equivalent of 107° in human beings. When a sick man's temperature reaches that height, his kidneys usually cease to function and he sinks into a coma. Autopsy usually discloses his kidneys damaged. That the damage begins with overexertion of mitochondria in the kidney cells seemed probable last week when Dr. Wilson reported that at the equivalent of 107° fever, rabbit kidney mitochondria suddenly shattered...