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stellarwindI've been hideously mood-swingy since Thursday for reasons I don't feel like writing about in an open entry. And today, during a chem lecture I literally was fighting back tears for the very same reasons. I felt utterly hideous.
Then we had a Cell to Organism lecture and the lecturer mentioned a single-celled organism named Dictyostelium discoideum , which displays a particularly fascinating trait: In conditions of lack of food, huge masses of Dictyostelium flock together and form a mock-multicellular slug-like organism, in which each of the cells serves a different function and the mass crawls off in search of more food sources. When such a 'slug' finds a location where the conditions are right, it transforms into a stalk-like structure with a fruiting body (similar to a mushroom, almost) which scatters spores. As the multicellular critter dissolves slowly, under the right conditions these spores 'sprout' into new single-cellular Dictyostelium , and the cycle begins again.
That was -so- awesome, it made me feel much better almost instantaneously.
... I'm a complete and utter geek.
Then we had a Cell to Organism lecture and the lecturer mentioned a single-celled organism named Dictyostelium discoideum , which displays a particularly fascinating trait: In conditions of lack of food, huge masses of Dictyostelium flock together and form a mock-multicellular slug-like organism, in which each of the cells serves a different function and the mass crawls off in search of more food sources. When such a 'slug' finds a location where the conditions are right, it transforms into a stalk-like structure with a fruiting body (similar to a mushroom, almost) which scatters spores. As the multicellular critter dissolves slowly, under the right conditions these spores 'sprout' into new single-cellular Dictyostelium , and the cycle begins again.
That was -so- awesome, it made me feel much better almost instantaneously.
... I'm a complete and utter geek.
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Date: 2008-11-11 05:54 pm (UTC)