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protoplasm |
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protoplasm, term once used for the fundamental material of which all living things were thought to be composed. It was studied by a number of early scientists, especially by Félix Dujardin, J. E. Purkinje, M. J. S. Schultze, and Hugo von Mohl (who is credited with introducing the name), all working in the 19th cent. Many of the notions associated with the term have survived. Thus it is still accepted that all living organisms are made largely of the same classes of substances such as salts and organic molecules, that some of these are organized into structures large enough to be seen in the microscope and that water almost always is by far the most abundant material. However, the term is rarely used any more in a strictly scientific sense, although it survives in more literary usages. The unity of living matter is now most often described in terms of the cell cell, in biology, the unit of structure and function of which all plants and animals are composed. The cell is the smallest unit in the living organism that is capable of integrating the essential life processes. There are many unicellular organisms, e.g. ..... Click the link for more information. as the unit of all living organisms (viruses virus, parasite with a noncellular structure composed mainly of nucleic acid within a protein coat. Viruses usually are too small (100–2,000 Angstrom units) to be seen with the light microscope and thus must be studied by electron microscopes. ..... Click the link for more information. , which are noncellular are at the border of life, being unable to reproduce independently outside living cells) and of the ubiquity of key biochemical molecules, especially nucleic acids nucleic acid, any of a group of organic substances found in the chromosomes of living cells and viruses that play a central role in the storage and replication of hereditary information and in the expression of this information through protein synthesis. ..... Click the link for more information. and proteins protein, any of the group of highly complex organic compounds found in all living cells and comprising the most abundant class of all biological molecules. Protein comprises approximately 50% of cellular dry weight. ..... Click the link for more information. . protoplasm Biology the living contents of a cell, differentiated into cytoplasm and nucleoplasm How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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A protoplasmic hand reached into the void and another hand took hold. Fans of Robert Louis Stevenson should recognize ``Treasure Island'' even with the ship RLS Legacy traveling in the cosmos and a pirate's parrot transformed into a protoplasmic blob called Morph. These colored girls still luv them some colored boys and are not the least bit intimidated by their need for phallocentric responses to an oppressive society, certainly not to the point that would have them consider turning into jelly, a protoplasmic mass of gender sensitivity reacting to male persuasions that threaten or challenge the ideological view of gender politics. |
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