Word: moths
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...Gipsy Moth Circles the World, Chichester...
WHILE dissecting pupae in search of the liquid's production site, he noticed a pair of long, very thin tubes in the front part of the pupa. These were the remains of the silk-producing tubes of the caterpillar. They led to a single opening on the moth's face just underneath the mouth. It was impossible to tell exactly where the liquid comes from since the first drop appears suddenly and covers the face. Yet the mouth and the old silk tubes were the only two openings and the mouth could be discounted because Kafatos had already shown that...
...soon noticed that there was some white, crystal-like powder on the face of a moth that was ready to emerge from its cocoon. Most of the enzyme crystals were on two cone-shaped structures on the face, called maxillae, which scientists had hither-to believed useless to the silk moth. Kafatos also found concentrated enzyme solution in the maxillae's cells, which squeeze the solution out through fine tubes leading to the surface of the maxillae. The enzyme, mixed with the liquid of the old silk tubes, gets painted over the cocoon's tip, thus dissolving the cocoon...
Puzzled by the changing function of the moth's old silk tubes and fascinated by the process which commits cells to their various fates, Kafatos turned to developmental biology on the cellular level. He presents his own findings in this field in two lectures in his course. He often involves his undergraduates, as well as his graduate students, in his projects. Kafatos is investigating both how cells become specialized and how they sometimes change from one specific function to another. These questions are crucial for man's understanding of the cell's nature. Furthermore, since cancerous cells are previously normal...
...this case continual messages to the cytoplasm are superfluous. Kafatos has been able to correlate stability and differentiation. He made this important discovery in a research project which began with an undergraduate, Julianne Reich '67, a former Bio 15 student now at the Medical School. The gland on the moth's face which produces large amounts of a single enzyme is an example of a highly differentiated organ. About 70 per cent of the protein made by this gland is one enzyme, "cocoonaise." The rest is proteins needed for cell maintenance and growth. The message for making the differentiation - specific...