Word: mucus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...virus spreads easily, traveling in droplets spewed into the air by sneezing and coughing or through contact with mucus on hands or objects. Transmission is faster in places with poor ventilation, such as rooms with closed windows, crowded classrooms, nursing homes and public transportation systems. On planes, where the air is continuously recirculated, just one flu- ridden passenger can infect all the rest...
...natural" end of sexual intercourse. But a couple may licitly refrain from conjugal relations during a woman's fertile period, which usually lasts ten to twelve days during each menstrual cycle. The improved way of precisely determining those days is known as the ovulation method, or Billings mucus method, which was introduced by and named for an Australian Catholic couple in the 1970s. Using it, a woman carefully monitors changes in her cervical mucus to determine when she is ovulating, and thus capable of conceiving a child. A 1976 study by the World Health Organization concluded that the Billings method...
...warehouse. The sisters have taught the method to 64,000 women in the Indian state of West Bengal. Teachers use everyday agricultural images to explain a woman's menstrual cycle: seeds are planted during the monsoon, when the soil is soft and moist; cows are inseminated when they produce mucus at the cervix, fertility's telltale sign. Some women who cannot afford pencil or paper dutifully chart their fertile days in simple symbols drawn with burned wood. In Brazil, Sister Cecilia heads an agency that runs 18 N.F.P. centers; she argues that in countries where poverty and illiteracy prevail, N.F.P...
...eyes, nose, ears and mouth. Fortunately for man's survival, most of them fail in their assault. They are repelled by the tough barrier of the skin, overcome by the natural pesticides in sweat, saliva and tears, dissolved by stomach acids or trapped in the sticky mucus of the nose or throat before being expelled by a sneeze or a cough. But the organisms are extraordinarily persistent, and some occasionally breach the outer defenses. After entering the bloodstream and tissues, they multiply at an alarming rate and begin destroying vital body cells...
...cells perform a last, vastly important task: they form memory cells that circulate in the bloodstream and lymph system for many years, primed to spring into action should the same strain of flu virus ever attack again. In addition, the body is protected by specialized antibodies, strategically deployed in mucus, saliva and tears, that immediately recognize any return of this particular virus...