What is protoplasm? Detailed answer

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What is protoplasm? Detailed answer

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What is protoplasm?

The secret of protoplasm is the secret of life itself. We still don't know what makes protoplasm alive. Protoplasm is the living substance of all plants and animals. All organisms - plants and animals - are made up of cells.

There can be many millions of cells, as in the human body, or there may be only one, like in protozoa - the simplest single-celled organism. But the cells of all living beings contain a living substance - protoplasm. In every cell, protoplasm is contained in two main parts: in the harder central part of the cell - the nucleus and in the soft, more fluid part - the cytoplasm. Any living being contains its own kind of protoplasm.

Different types of cells in the body have their own specific forms of protoplasm. 99% of the protoplasm of its total volume consists of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and a small amount of other elements. Food entering a living organism is first digested and takes on a liquid form. The digested food can then become part of the protoplasm. This process is called assimilation. It has not yet been fully studied, it is not known exactly how it proceeds.

It is known that the result of assimilation is the restoration of the "worn" and the creation of a new protoplasm. In the process, the protoplasm surrounds the dead substance with living material and replaces the foreign substance with a similar one.

Protoplasm also accumulates and realizes all the energy of plants and animals. Protoplasm is exposed to the external environment. Bright light or heat can kill her. Chemicals attract or repel protoplasm. An electric current produces the same effect on it if you change its direction.

If someday science discovers the secret of how protoplasm works, we will be able to penetrate deeper into the secret of life itself.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

How does a caterpillar weave a cocoon?

A young butterfly or moth is called a caterpillar. The caterpillar is an insect in development. When a caterpillar hatches from a larva laid by a mother butterfly or mother moth, it is very small. But it is growing rapidly and changes begin to occur with it. The changes that occur to it are called metamorphoses.

The first stage for many caterpillar species is the creation of a cocoon. She weaves it from threads of a sticky liquid produced by her lower lip. This liquid solidifies in air and becomes a thread. We call it natural silk. Some caterpillars form entire bags of silk that completely hide them. Others are wrapped in leaves, fastening only the edges of the sheet with silk.

Many of the hairy caterpillar species spin cocoons from their own hair. Some caterpillars, including certain species that will develop into butterflies, do not build cocoons. But all butterflies go through a dormant stage. It doesn't mean rest at all. This stage can last for two weeks, or maybe all winter. During this period, the caterpillar turns into an adult butterfly or moth. In its new, adult form, the caterpillar becomes wet and weakens the cocoon. As soon as the blood enters the wings through the veins, the adult insect straightens them and dries them. After a few hours, when the wings become strong and dry, the butterfly or moth flies out and lives its adult life.

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Chinese scientists have developed a self-powered "smart" pillow that will better understand the causes of lack of sleep, as well as track patients with diseases that affect head movement.

Research has linked chronic sleep deprivation to diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, as well as mental health problems. People who want to better understand what happens to them at night can take a sleep test at a medical institution, or use an application for a smartphone or smart watch. As a more accurate alternative to the second method, scientists are developing new sleep monitoring systems using triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) - a constant current source. These self-contained systems have already taken the form of eye masks, belts, patches and even sheets. And now the shape of the pillow.

To design a new "smart" pillow, the researchers developed a flexible porous polymer triboelectric layer. Movement between the head and this layer changes the electric field around nearby electrodes, generating a current. They connected several of these self-powered sensors to create a flexible and breathable array that can be placed on a regular pillow. This system could generate a voltage corresponding to the amount of pressure applied and could track the movement of a finger as it traced letters. It can also record the distribution of head pressure on the pillow when changing position.

The development can be used for more than just sleep tracking. For example, the system could track patients with diseases that affect head movement, such as degenerative neck disease, cervical spondylosis.

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