"The ability to not only observe, but to measure dynamics of undisturbed living cells, through the application of quantification techniques to holo-tomographic microscopy, is likely to lead to discovery of fundamentally new cell behaviors, and new understanding of previously studied phenomena as well," Frechin said. Here, in the run-up to mitosis (the stage of the cell cycle in which the nucleus divides in two), the researchers show that the entire nucleus rotates between 80 and 700 degrees over a period of minutes to hours. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis. Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation. The scientific method has five basic steps, plus one feedback step: Make an observation. The ability of the microscopic technique to capture data from the entire cell simultaneously allowed the authors to provide important new information about the intriguing but little-understood process of organelle spinning. There are several well-known theories in biology, including the theory of evolution, cell theory, and germ theory. The Biological phenomena Are any kind of change that alters the life of ecosystems, biological dependencies and the trophic systems of ecosystems. At the core of biology and other sciences lies a problem-solving approach called the scientific method. Applying their techniques, they quantified for the first time the flux of fat droplets within a whole cell, measuring their rate of formation and changes in mass over time, and revealing new aspects of their dynamics, including the synchronization of swelling among a subset of droplets. In the current study, the authors applied multiple image-processing techniques to extract quantitative data from their holo-tomographic images. The whole process is done without dyes and at very low levels of light, preserving the structural and behavioral integrity of the cell during image capture. The state of one object in that system cant be fully described without information on the state of the other object. By tipping the sample, multiple such images can be combined to create a three-dimensional picture of the cell. Entanglement: This is a phenomenon that occurs when two or more objects are connected in such a way that they can be thought of as a single system, even if they are very far apart. When the two parts are recombined, differences in their wave forms can be used to create an image based on differences in the refractive index of the cell's components. That liquid-to-solid transition is such a useful comparison for scientists studying emergence that they often characterize emergent phenomena as phase changes.A wide variety of techniques is available to study living cells, but many of them have intrinsic limitations, such as the need for damaging levels of light, or the use of interfering dyes, or poor contrast and resolution.Ī relatively new form of microscopy, called holo-tomographic microscopy, surmounts some of these limitations, by splitting a light beam, diverting one part and letting the other pass through the sample. Rather, the average kinetic energy of the molecules drops low enough for the repulsive and attractive forces among them to fall into a new, more springy balance. For instance, ice doesn’t form at zero degrees Celsius because the water molecules suddenly become stickier to one another. These wholes are indeed greater than the sums of their parts.Īnother is that even when the elements continue to follow the same rules of individual behavior, external considerations can change the collective outcome of their actions. One is that these emergent phenomena can be understood only as collective behaviors - there is no way to make sense of them without looking at dozens, hundreds, thousands or more of the contributing elements en masse. ![]() Where does the extra injection of complex order suddenly come from?Īnswers are starting to come into view. Researchers have even coined the term “emergence” to describe these puzzling manifestations of self-organization, which can seem, at first blush, inexplicable. Nature is filled with such examples of complex behaviors that arise spontaneously from relatively simple elements. ![]() Scrutinize the birds in a flock or the fish in a school and you wouldn’t find one that’s orchestrating the movements of all the others. Watch a lone ant under a microscope for as long as you like, and you still couldn’t predict that thousands of them might collaboratively build bridges with their bodies to span gaps. ![]() You could spend a lifetime studying an individual water molecule and never deduce the precise hardness or slipperiness of ice.
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