Word: paramecia
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...testing the effect of serum from cancerous mice on the sensitive paramecium, a single-celled protozoan.* The serum had no effect. But when it was inactivated by freezing, and then mixed in carefully measured proportions with healthy guinea-pig serum, the mixture developed a toxic factor which killed paramecia...
Through careful observation of more than 10,000 "clones" (detached families) of paramecia, conducted with Winchellian zest and godlike detachment, Dr. Jennings has concluded that paramecia's mating is dependent on sex and that their choice of a mate has important bearing on the character of their descendants. "They behave," he explains, "a lot like humans. This one here, now. He was an exconjugant of first cousins. He's no account. Oh, but say, here's a good healthy one. His sex life is really something...
...Jennings' experiments in infinitesimal incest have yielded valuable hints on the effects of human inbreeding. Last summer they also led the scientist to a surprising discovery. In his efforts to mate various cells of one variety of paramecium, he discovered evidence that the paramecia are divided into no less than eight sexes. Unable to determine the physiological differences between them, he has found proof that each sex will mate cheerfully with any one of the other seven, but rigidly eschews homosexuality...
...paramecium is a giant, just visible to a good, sharp, naked eye. For three years Dr. Herbert Spencer Jennings, distinguished University of California at Los Angeles zoologist,* has been watching a thousand generations of one species, Paramecium bur-saria, under his microscope. Last week he told about his paramecia's mating habits...
...Paramecia reproduce mostly by fission -splitting in two-like the smaller and simpler amoebae, but now & then paramecia mate by clinging together in pairs. This seems to put new vigor into the reproductive cycle. Some paramecium pairs come together violently, adhere for 24 to 36 hours. Other matings are gentler, even flirtatious. Dr. Jennings said he had seen pairs nuzzle each other several times, then swim off side by side in graceful spirals, like "couples in a dance." After years of watching these goings-on, Dr. Jennings was willing to carry the origins of social behavior all the way back...