Word: plasm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...swell, burst open, shower sticky golden dust on the blossoms, marring their virginal immaculacy. GE's lily, which owes its existence to Engineer Chester Newell Moore, is non-dehiscent. Mr. Moore was experimenting with the effects of x-rays on genes and chromosomes (heredity carriers in the germ-plasm). He irradiated 75 bulbs of regal lilies. Nothing noteworthy happened to the first generation, but among the second-generation freaks were two flowers whose anthers shriveled without releasing their pollen. From these two Engineer Moore obtained a true-breeding strain of non-dehiscent lilies...
...both. Whereas primitive organisms are bundles of inherited reaction patterns and higher animals are resultants of heredity plus environment, Dr. Hrdlicka believes that man can promote or suppress the unfolding of his heredity by acts of volition. This may lead to actual physical or chemical changes in the germ-plasm, in the operation of the genes, carriers of heredity. "Such changes," said Dr. Hrdlicka, "if benign, may start differentiation, and under special circumstances, conceivably, evolution...
...albino for the same reason that occasional humans are: congenital lack of black pigment cells in the skin. For some reason albino frogs are far rarer than albino humans, lobsters, squirrels, peacocks, porcupines. About one out of every seven normal humans carries the albino inheritance in his germ-plasm as a recessive Mendelian character, and one person in every 25,000 is an albino. Albinism has been recorded in the great majority of animal and plant species. But Dr. Noble, contemplating Whitey, guessed that possibly not more than one like her could be found among millions of pond frogs. Naturalists...
...years ago Heitz of Germany showed that the chromosomes in the fruit fly's salivary glands were greatly enlarged-70 times bigger than the germ-plasm chromosomes. Last year Dr. Theophilus Shickel Painter of University of Texas found cross bands on the giant chromosomes which he thought might have something to do with gene locality. Then affable, bushy-haired Dr. Bridges refined his photomicrographic technique to such a point that the chromosomes appeared as twisted strings of flat, irregular beads, and the cross bands were seen to be mosaics of infinitesimal cylinder ends. Dr. Bridges did not identify either...
...hereditary characteristics had been known for generations) suddenly brought forth anomalies with curiously colored eyes, unreasonable wings, radically bobbed hair antennae. New species came into existence, the special marks of the X-ray were transmitted down the generations. Biologist Muller tried the effect of other agents on the germ plasm. Treatment with lead, arsenic, poisons which were known to change cells had no effect. X-rays and cosmic rays are the only forces in nature that can shake up the germ cells, changing their original plan of development, making the changes hereditary in many cases. X-rays and cosmic rays...