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Avoidance Reaction
Avoidance reaction is a term used in the description of the movement of paramecium. This helps the cell avoid obstacles and causes other objects to bounce off of the cell's outer membrane. The paramecium does this by reversing the direction in which its cilia beat. This results in stopping, spinning or turning, after which point the paramecium resumes swimming forward. If multiple avoidance reactions follow one another, it is possible for a paramecium to swim backward, though not as smoothly as swimming forward. Avoidance reaction occurs when the cell hits an obstruction, providing an anterior, mechanical stimulus: *The cell will then reverse. *It will then stop and rotate. *Now facing a new direction, the cell will move off in that direction. This process will continue until the cell is able to negotiate its way around the obstruction. Movement of Paramecium cells is caused by control of calcium ions inside the cell and membrane potentials. The simplest explanation for the a ...
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Paramecium
''Paramecium'' ( , , plural "paramecia" only when used as a Common name, vernacular name) is a genus of eukaryotic, unicellular ciliates, widespread in freshwater, brackish, and Ocean, marine environments. Paramecia are often abundant in stagnant basins and ponds. Because some species are readily cultivated and easily induced to sexual conjugation, conjugate and divide, they have been widely used in classrooms and laboratories to study biological processes. ''Paramecium'' species are commonly studied as model organisms of the ciliate group and have been characterized as the "laboratory rat, white rats" of the phylum Ciliophora. Historical background ''Paramecium'' were among the first ciliates to be observed by microscopy, microscopists, in the late 17th century. They were most likely known to the Dutch pioneer of protozoology, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, and were clearly described by his contemporary Christiaan Huygens in a letter from 1678. The earliest known illustration of a ...
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Cell (biology)
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all life, forms of life. Every cell consists of cytoplasm enclosed within a Cell membrane, membrane; many cells contain organelles, each with a specific function. The term comes from the Latin word meaning 'small room'. Most cells are only visible under a light microscope, microscope. Cells Abiogenesis, emerged on Earth about 4 billion years ago. All cells are capable of Self-replication, replication, protein synthesis, and cell motility, motility. Cells are broadly categorized into two types: eukaryotic cells, which possess a Cell nucleus, nucleus, and prokaryotic, prokaryotic cells, which lack a nucleus but have a nucleoid region. Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms such as bacteria, whereas eukaryotes can be either single-celled, such as amoebae, or multicellular organism, multicellular, such as some algae, plants, animals, and fungi. Eukaryotic cells contain organelles including Mitochondrion, mitochondria, which ...
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Cell Membrane
The cell membrane (also known as the plasma membrane or cytoplasmic membrane, and historically referred to as the plasmalemma) is a biological membrane that separates and protects the interior of a cell from the outside environment (the extracellular space). The cell membrane consists of a lipid bilayer, made up of two layers of phospholipids with cholesterols (a lipid component) interspersed between them, maintaining appropriate membrane fluidity at various temperatures. The membrane also contains membrane proteins, including integral proteins that span the membrane and serve as membrane transporters, and peripheral proteins that loosely attach to the outer (peripheral) side of the cell membrane, acting as enzymes to facilitate interaction with the cell's environment. Glycolipids embedded in the outer lipid layer serve a similar purpose. The cell membrane controls the movement of substances in and out of a cell, being selectively permeable to ions and organic mole ...
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Obstruction
Obstruction may refer to: Places * Obstruction Island, in Washington state * Obstruction Islands, east of New Guinea Medicine * Obstructive jaundice * Obstructive sleep apnea * Airway obstruction, a respiratory problem ** Recurrent airway obstruction * Bowel obstruction, a blockage of the intestines. * Gastric outlet obstruction * Distal intestinal obstruction syndrome * Congenital lacrimal duct obstruction * Bladder outlet obstruction Politics and law * Obstruction of justice, the crime of interfering with law enforcement * Obstructionism, the practice of deliberately delaying or preventing a process or change, especially in politics * Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2006 Science and mathematics * Obstruction set in forbidden graph characterizations, in the study of graph minors in graph theory * Obstruction theory, in mathematics * Propagation path obstruction ** Single Vegetative Obstruction Model Sports * Obstruction (baseball), when a fielder illegally hinders a ba ...
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Stimulus (physiology)
In physiology, a stimulus is a change in a living thing's internal or external environment. This change can be detected by an organism or organ using sensitivity, and leads to a physiological reaction. Sensory receptors can receive stimuli from outside the body, as in touch receptors found in the skin or light receptors in the eye, as well as from inside the body, as in chemoreceptors and mechanoreceptors. When a stimulus is detected by a sensory receptor, it can elicit a reflex via stimulus transduction. An internal stimulus is often the first component of a homeostatic control system. External stimuli are capable of producing systemic responses throughout the body, as in the fight-or-flight response. In order for a stimulus to be detected with high probability, its level of strength must exceed the absolute threshold; if a signal does reach threshold, the information is transmitted to the central nervous system (CNS), where it is integrated and a decision on how to ...
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Calcium Ion
Calcium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to its heavier homologues strontium and barium. It is the fifth most abundant element in Earth's crust, and the third most abundant metal, after iron and aluminium. The most common calcium compound on Earth is calcium carbonate, found in limestone and the fossils of early sea life; gypsum, anhydrite, fluorite, and apatite are also sources of calcium. The name comes from Latin ''calx'' " lime", which was obtained from heating limestone. Some calcium compounds were known to the ancients, though their chemistry was unknown until the seventeenth century. Pure calcium was isolated in 1808 via electrolysis of its oxide by Humphry Davy, who named the element. Calcium compounds are widely used in many industries: in foods and pharmaceuticals for calci ...
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Cilia
The cilium (: cilia; ; in Medieval Latin and in anatomy, ''cilium'') is a short hair-like membrane protrusion from many types of eukaryotic cell. (Cilia are absent in bacteria and archaea.) The cilium has the shape of a slender threadlike projection that extends from the surface of the much larger cell body. Eukaryotic flagella found on sperm cells and many protozoans have a similar structure to motile cilia that enables swimming through liquids; they are longer than cilia and have a different undulating motion. There are two major classes of cilia: ''motile'' and ''non-motile'' cilia, each with two subtypes, giving four types in all. A cell will typically have one primary cilium or many motile cilia. The structure of the cilium core, called the axoneme, determines the cilium class. Most motile cilia have a central pair of single microtubules surrounded by nine pairs of double microtubules called a 9+2 axoneme. Most non-motile cilia have a 9+0 axoneme that lacks the central pai ...
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