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Cells solved Henry VIII's infamous hedge maze by 'seeing around corners,' video shows
livescience.com ^ | 27 August 2020 | Brandon Specktor

Posted on 08/27/2020 11:03:29 PM PDT by BenLurkin

For a single cell, the human body is a gargantuan maze of tissues, chemicals and capillaries, crammed full with trillions of other cells all bustling about like commuters at the world's busiest train station.

In their new study, the researchers focused on a specific form of cell navigation called "self-generated" chemotaxis. It relies on a simple philosophy: cells want to move from areas of a lower concentration of attractant (in this case, an acidic solution called adenosine monophosphate) into areas with a higher concentration.

To determine which branch holds the higher concentration of attractant, cells break down the molecules in front of them, causing attractant from the nearby areas to diffuse toward them. As the cells move forward, the attractant ahead of them depletes more and more; eventually, short, dead-end branches of the maze are totally depleted of attractant, even before the cells reach the exit to a dead end. When faced with a short, depleted branch and a long, attractant-filled branch, the cells will never take the dead-end route, Insall said.

Mazes ranged from easy (just a few branching paths before the exit) to difficult (with long dead-end paths, like the Hampton Court hedge maze replica) to impossible (according to Insall, a replica of Scotland's Traquair House maze had to be scrapped, because all the amoebas kept dying before they solved the puzzle).

The researchers cast these tiny mazes in rubber, then flooded them with a fluid attractant that was piped in from the maze exit. At the start of each maze, soil amoebas called Dictyostelium discoideum lined up and began to swim forward, breaking down the fluid molecules before them. The longest mazes took about 2 hours for the savvy cells to solve, Insall said, while the shorter ones took just 30 minutes.

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: cryptobiology; godsgravesglyphs; henryviii; maze

1 posted on 08/27/2020 11:03:29 PM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: SunkenCiv

ping


2 posted on 08/27/2020 11:03:52 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
Thanks BenLurkin.

3 posted on 08/27/2020 11:22:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: BenLurkin

So that’s how Joe Biden finds the bathroom! His cells are in charge!!


4 posted on 08/28/2020 4:32:09 AM PDT by View from the Cheap Seats
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To: BenLurkin; SunkenCiv

A-maze-ing..............................


5 posted on 08/28/2020 5:06:04 AM PDT by Red Badger (Sine Q-Anon.....................)
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To: BenLurkin

They just had good cellular reception for their mobile google maps.


6 posted on 08/28/2020 7:33:57 AM PDT by Redcitizen (Nobody needs a 10 round magazine. You need a 30 round magazine. Yeah)
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