Word: protoplasmal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Since Physarum produces "fruits" at intervals averaging 14 days (at the end of which it turns into hard, seedlike cells), it is formally classified as a plant. Yet the new little fruits, bundles of protoplasm, have powers of locomotion like an animal. They move by the classical method of protoplasmic streaming-protruding part of their body, pulling the rest after the protrusion...
...This protoplasmic streaming interests Dr. Seifriz immensely. The movements of Physarum show a definite pulse, not unlike that of a beating heart. With inadequate motion-picture equipment at Philadelphia, he was not able to see this living rhythm until he went to studv at the Pasteur Institute in France where films had been made and slowed down 100 times. The Physarum pulse was seen to have a period of about 45 seconds. Dr. Seifriz rejects the older theories attributing protoplasmic movement to surface tension, electric potentials, etc. "I ask the reader," he wrote recently in Science, "merely to admit that...
...listen with aseptic indulgence. Said Dr. Crile in Memphis: "What we eat is radiation. Our food is so much quanta of energy, not in that inert word calories, but quanta. The sun shines upon our food products, and the sun shines secondarily within us. in the body's protoplasm. Energy contained in food is put there by the sun's radiation on the atoms of plants. Atoms are the vehicles that are filled with solar radiance as so many coiled springs. These countless atomfuls of energy are taken in as food. This life-sustaining radiation releases electrical currents...
Every bit of protoplasm is loaded with multitudes of "hot points" or "radiogens" which produce the rays, according to him. Temperature of those points must be between 3,000° and 6,000° C. "If one could look into protoplasm with an eye capable of infinite magnification," he elaborated, "one might expect to see the radiogens spaced like stars, as suns in infinite miniature." The "interstellar" spaces absorb the intense heat of his radiogens, he reasons. The nucleus of his theoretic radiogen "would theoretically be a molecule of iron." Dr. Maria Takles, a Crile associate, figures four billion radiogens...
...October Erpi Picture Consultants, Inc. (subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.) will offer for sale a set of 20 one-reel sound pictures produced in the Physical Sciences Department at Chicago. The pictures will show detailed scientific experiments, synchronized with lectures by Chicago professors. Subjects include: the flow of protoplasm in plant & animal life, the excavations of Nineveh and Megiddo, the heartbeat of a dog. Price for the set will be $1,400 including projector. The university will receive no profit beyond publicity. Not intended to take the place of professors or to reduce teaching time, the films are planned...