Word: spore
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...really a beautiful coral pink in its natural state, unmolested by geneticists. Neurospora is a geneticist's dream. When properly introduced, it mates and reproduces sexually. It also grows nonsexually, so a truckload of mold with the same heredity can be grown, if desirable, from a single spore. But the best thing about Neurospora is that it asks for so little. It thrives on a medium containing nothing but mineral salts, sugar and a single vitamin, biotin. Everything else that it needs it can make out of these simple foods...
...sprouted hopefully but did not grow. These were the interesting spores. They acted as if they were trying to grow, but needed something that they could not get from the agar or produce for themselves. So when a microscope showed such a spore, it was tenderly fed with vitamins, amino acids and other growth-fostering chemicals in hope of making it perk up and grow normally...
...start of the experiment, Beadle and Tatum resolved to make at least 1,000 tries before giving up. Such perseverence was not necessary. On the 299th try they found an ailing spore that needed only vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine) to make it grow lustily. When it had mated with a normal mold, it transmitted its need for vitamin B-6 to its descendants in the proper Mendelian manner for a single mutated gene...
Rust has another way of wintering. When the weather begins to get cold in the north, the fungus produces black, cold-proof spores. These spend the winter on straw or stubble. In spring, they germinate, sending out small spores that infect barberry bushes. Up to 70 billion vigorous spores can form on an average barberry bush. Each spore can start a fast-spreading infection in a stand of wheat...
Truffles are underground mushrooms-stonelike, spore-bearing fruit of fungi that live on tree roots. The insects and small animals which distribute truffle spores are attracted by the powerful, penetrating odor. The odor also interests dogs, hogs, goats and gourmets. The truffle has been in high fashion as an accent for royal feasts since the time of Pliny...