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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Caenorhabditis Elegans The creature with this formidable name is only about a millimeter long and develops from egg to adult in about 3.5 days, at which time it possesses about 1,000 somatic cells. C. elegans is a roundworm, but a famous one. Its growth has been followed on a cell-bycell basis from egg to adult. The history of each cell is known from birth to death. The fact that C.elegans is nicely transparent helps the cell-watcher. Here are some of the interesting things to be seen as cells proliferate, live, and die. First, C. elegans is bilaterally symmetrical ... but the pattern of cell generation on the right differs from that on the left. Nevertheless, the creature ends up symmetrical, making one wonder where the directions for symmetry come from. Some cells are transients, dying when their jobs are done. A few doomed cells are generated only because they produce sister cells that are needed in the final animal. Such a programmed loss of cells may be a method of modifying an organism during evolution. John Sulston, one of the researchers, says, "Within the lineage you can see the fossil of its past." (Marx, Jean L.; "Caenorhabditis Elegans: Getting to Know You," Science, 225:40, 1984.) Comment. Sulston's statement reminds one of "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," which ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 343 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf035/sf035p14.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is immortality only a mutation away?Here follows the lead sentence of the abstract of a recent letter to Nature : "We have found that mutations in the gene daf-2 can cause fertile, active adult Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodites to live more than twice as long as wild type." (Kenyon, Cynthia, et al; "A C. elegans Mutant That Lives Twice as Long as Wild Type," Nature, 366:461, 1993.) Comment. C. elegans is a roundworm only about a millimeter long. Roughly a thousand cells make up its tiny body, and scientists have charted the birth and death of ... cell from egg to adult. This roundworm's life is a mosaic of changing cells, as some die to make way for new cells with different agendas. Somehow this programmed sequence of cell death and birth can be slowed down by mutations and thus increase longevity. Wouldn't any mortal speculate that perhaps human longevity might, like that of C. elegans , be extended by modern gene manipulators? Sure, it's quite an extrapolation from roundworm to human, but our cells are programmed just like those of C. elegans . Change a gene here and there, and we might all live as long as Noah! From Science Frontiers #92, MAR-APR 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 195 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf092/sf092b06.htm
... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Ancient Egyptians in Hawaii Sinister Development in Ancient Greece Man the Scavenger A Different Way of Looking At the Universe Astronomy A Quick Quasar Monster Star Lurks Nearby Halley's Comet is Winking At Us Galactic Radiation Belt? Biology Dolphins to the Rescue -- again! Gravity and Going Around in Ellipses Getting the Pouch Right Are Bluebloods More Often Type A? Mind Before Life Caenorhabditis Elegans The Chinese Wild Man Geology An Extraordinary Peat Formation Confusing Seismic Data From the Deep Continental Crust Geophysics Infrared Atmospheric Waves Burning Mass Falls in B.C . Psychology The Immune System As A Sensory Organ Parapsychology: A Lack-of-progress Report Chemistry & Physics Blooms in the Desert? ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 150 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf035/index.htm
