Crossword clues for protoplasm
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Protoplasm \Pro"to*plasm\, n. [Proto- + Gr. ? form, fr. ? to mold.] (Biol.) The viscid and more or less granular material of vegetable and animal cells, possessed of vital properties by which the processes of nutrition, secretion, and growth go forward; the so-called `` physical basis of life;'' the original cell substance, cytoplasm, cytoblastema, bioplasm sarcode, etc.
Note: The lowest forms of animal and vegetable life (unicellular organisms) consist of simple or unaltered protoplasm; the tissues of the higher organisms, of differentiated protoplasm.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1848, from German Protoplasma (1846), used by German botanist Hugo von Mohl (1805-1872), on notion of "first-formed," from Greek proto- "first" (see proto-) + plasma "something molded" (see -plasm).\n
\nThe word was in Late Latin with a sense of "first created thing," and it might have existed in ecclesiastical Greek in a different sense. It was used 1839 by Czech physiologist Johannes Evangelista Purkinje (1787-1869) to denote the gelatinous fluid found in living tissue. The modern meaning is a refinement of this. This word prevailed, though German language purists preferred Urschleim.
Wiktionary
n. (context cytology English) The entire contents of a cell comprising the nucleus and the cytoplasm. It is a semi-fluid, transparent substance which is the living matter of plant and animal cells.
WordNet
n. the living substance of a cell (including cytoplasm and nucleus) [syn: living substance]
Wikipedia
Protoplasm is the living content of a cell that is surrounded by a plasma membrane.
In some definitions, it is a general term for the cytoplasm (e.g., Mohl, 1846), but for others, it also includes the nucleoplasm (e.g., Strasburger, 1882). For Sharp (1921), "According to the older usage the extra-nuclear portion of the protoplast [the entire cell, excludind the cell wall] was called "protoplasm," which was unfortunate because we now know that the nucleus also is composed of protoplasm, or living substance in its broader sense. It is now the general custom to avoid this ambiguity by employing Strasburger's [(1882)] terms cytoplasm [coined by Kölliker (1863), originally as synonym for protoplasm] and nucleoplasm ([term coined by van Beneden (1875), or] karyoplasm, [used by] Flemming [(1878)])". It should be noted that the cytoplasm definition of Strasburger excluded the plastids (Chromatoplasm).
As for the nucleus, the inclusion or not of the vacuole in the protoplasm concept is also controversial.
Usage examples of "protoplasm".
Shortly after the tentacles have reexpanded, the little masses of protoplasm are all redissolved, and the purple fluid within the cells becomes as homogeneous and transparent as it was at first.
The importance of the nucleus became more and more forcibly impressed upon microscopists, and this body came after a little into such prominence as to hide from view the more familiar protoplasm.
After the protoplasm in a tentacle has been aggregated, its redissolution always begins in the lower part, and slowly travels up the pedicel to the gland, so that the protoplasm last aggregated is first redissolved.
By this time a few rather large, transparent, globular masses appeared within the upper ends of the pedicels, and the protoplasm lining their walls had shrunk a little.
This result is analogous to that which follows from the immersion of leaves in a strong solution of one part of the carbonate to 109, or 146, or even 218 of water, for the leaves are then paralysed and no inflection ensues, though the glands are blackened, and the protoplasm in the cells of the tentacles undergoes strong aggregation.
A similar result followed from an immersion of only 15 minutes in a solution of one part of carbonate of ammonia to 218 of water, and the adjoining cells of the tentacles, on which the papillae were seated, now likewise contained aggregated masses of protoplasm.
That the contents of the cells of the glands, and afterwards those of the pedicels, are affected in a plainly visible manner by the pressure of minute particles, we shall have abundant evidence when we treat of the aggregation of protoplasm.
Altogether, one of these cells with the ever changing central masses, and with the layer of protoplasm flowing round the walls, presents a wonderful scene of vital activity.
The Divisionists are much given to the practice of black magic in general, and they have innumerable formulas of varying efficacy for destroying the Mother Cell, also known as the Protoplasm Daddy, by torturing or killing a captured replica.
It was the simplest thing that had life, and indeed the only thing that had life, for there is no life outside of cells and protoplasm.
While the study of plants and animals was showing scientists that natural forces would explain the origin of more complex types from simpler ones through the law of natural selection, here in this conception of protoplasm was a theory which promised to show how the simplest forms may have been derived from the non-living.
It is not protoplasm, but cell substance, plus cell nucleus, which forms the simplest basis of life.
These simplest life processes are so marvelous and involve the action of such an intricate mass of machinery that we can no longer retain our earlier notion of protoplasm as the physical basis of life.
At all events, at the present time we know of no such simple protoplasm capable of living activities apart from machinery, and the problem of explaining life, even in the simplest form known, remains the problem of explaining a mechanism.
Most students of protoplasm have therefore abandoned all expectation of making even the simplest living thing.