Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 16: Summer 1981 Issue Contents

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Blebs And Ruffles

Single cells taken from multicellular organisms tend to inch along like independent amoebas -- almost as if they were looking for companionship or trying to fulfill some destiny. This surprising vo-lition of isolated cells becomes an even more remarkable property when the individual cells are fragmented. Guenter Albrecht-Buehler, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, has found that even tiny cell fragments, perhaps just a couple percent of the whole cell, will tend to move about. They develop blebs (bubbles) or ruffles and extend questing filopodia. They have all the migra tory urges of the single cells but cannot pull it off. Cell fragments will bleb or ruffle, but not both. Why? Where are they trying to go?

(Anonymous; "The Blebs and Ruffles of Cellular Fortune," New Scientist, 90:87, 1981.)

From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981. © 1981-2000 William R. Corliss

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Science Frontiers Sourcebook Project Reviewed in: Icarus: Volume 41, Issue 3, p. 470-470 1984, Vol.56:3, P.615 1983, Vol.58:3 June 1984, Vol.60:3 Dec 1984, Vol.72:3 Dec 1987 Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 81, no. 1 1987 American Journal of Physics, Volume 52, Issue 8, p. 764 August 1984 Quotes "Before opening the book, I set certain standards that a volume which treads into dangerous grounds grounds like this must meet. The author scrupulously met, or even exceeded those standards. Each phenomenon is exhaustively documented, with references to scientific journals [..] and extensive quotations" -- "Book Review: The moon and planets: a catalog of astronomical anomalies", The Sourcebook Project, 1985., Corliss, W. R., Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada>, Vol. 81, no. 1 (1987), p. 24., 02/1987