Word: slime
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass, (where the lecture-hall pointer is a fishing rod), a young Harvard biologist, Dr. John T. Bonner, is getting some of the answers. He works with a curious "slime mold," Dictyostelium discoideum, of the order Acrasiales, whose cells live alone and like it, but can also organize into a multicelled creature...
Many other biologists have studied Dictyostelium discoideum and related Acrasiales.* One slime-mold expert, Dr. K. B. Raper, of the Department of Agriculture, discovered (among other things) that the ultimate fate of the individual amoeba depends on how quickly it joins the aggregation. Latecomers form parts of the disc which supports the stalk; they die at the final breakup. The early birds form parts of the stalk itself; they die too. Only the middle-of-the-roaders, who arrive neither late nor early, live to continue the race...
Coelophysis emerged from the slime of the Paleozoic Age 200 million years ago, an early step in the transition of life from amphibian to reptilian form. He roamed across North America, from New Mexico to New England. He had large, powerful legs, which carried him around swiftly, and powerful forepaws, well-equipped with claws. He was a ferocious carnivore. Eventually-about 60 million years ago-coelophysis, like all of his fearsome family, disappeared...
Billingsgate's reputation for stench went to a new high; the cobbled streets around it were covered with fishy slime and refuse. Said one of its porters: "If this 'ad 'appened in the summer, we'd 'ave 'ad to wear our ruddy gas masks...
...damp earth, her lips blue with death; her eyes were open and the rain fell on them. People chipped at bark, pounded it by the roadside for food; vendors sold leaves at a dollar a bundle. Ghostlike men were skimming the stagnant pools to eat the green slime of the waters. Once our horses sheered off violently from two people lying side by side in the night, sobbing aloud in their desolation...