Century-Old Cat Tongue: Papillae-On

      I'm short on time this week so will present you with this link to a 100-year-old image of a cat's tongue in today's Science Friday :

      The text from the NPR Science Friday link is also reproduced below:

       "You’re looking at a 3 mm-wide section of a cat tongue more than a century old. David Linstead’s captivating image was a winner in this year’s Wellcome Image Awards.


       "The picture is actually a composite of 30 polarized light micrographs, or photographs taken with a digital camera and a microscope. A retired cell biologist, Linstead used microscopes professionally as a research tool, and later formed his “hobby addiction” after purchasing one, then another, and still more microscopes on eBay (also his go-to source for specimen-plated slides like this one). His particular interest is in combining modern illumination techniques with vintage slides dating from 1860 to 1910, the heyday of slide-making."

      “The original person who made this slide likely had no thought of how it would be used in 100 years’ time,” says Linstead, who estimates that it dates back to the 1890s. “But when I saw it, I immediately knew it had great potential.”

     "The promise lay in the way the slide was prepared. It wasn’t stained, for one, which allowed the cross-section’s true colors to be observed with polarized light—a feature of most cutting-edge microscopes of the Victorian age. Those yellow streaks, for instance, are horizontal muscles, and the sparse purple ones are muscles that run vertically."

      "Furthermore, the original tissue had been injected with a dye—probably a solution of iron salt in warm gelatin, Linstead surmises—to make the capillaries, seen here as black squiggles, apparent. (The only alteration Linstead made to the image was to Photoshop the background gray, because the original magenta “didn’t go well with the rest of the slide.”)"

      "Colors aside, the serrated ridge may be the most intriguing aspect of this picture. Those rough bumps, or papillae, are the reason that a kitty’s tongue feels like sandpaper when it licks you. When a cat grooms herself, the papillae

 act like a comb to remove dirt and loose hair. But they also serve a grislier purpose: rasping meat off of bones. Fluffy might look sweet, but Linstead’s striking image is a reminder that the cat napping on the couch is a fierce predator."

       The other 19 images in this year's Wellcome awards, including these specialized Purkinje brain cells, are also quite intriguing.

     Let me know what you think. . .Hoping the cat doesn't have your tongue, er, thumbs. 

     [With fond thoughts of Lego's Noosie.]

Digitally,

Steph

Purkinje cells showing well-defined organization:

Antimetaboles and Amphiboles ~~ Amphiboles and Antimetaboles

       Antimetabole (/æntɨməˈtæbəliː/ AN-ti-mə-TAB-ə-lee) is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed order (e.g., "I know what I like, and I like what I know").

       Six-syllable words, in general, make me quite happy especially with this great meaning for an elegant turn of phrase. 

       Simple and profound:
 

      John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" is one of the most famous antimetaboles. (I also just like writing the word antimetaboles).

       The antimetabole is similar to a chiasmus, though the chiasmus is applied fairly broadly to any "criss-cross" structure, often with a reference to the biblical cross. In its classical use, chiasmus was used for structures that do not repeat the same words and phrases, but invert a sentence's grammatical structure or ideas. 

       Antimetaboles brought me to amphiboles and their criss-cross crystal structure. Amphiboles are any of a class of rock-forming double chain silicate or aluminosilicate minerals typically occurring as fibrous or columnar crystals.

     
     The amphibole structure includes silica tetrahedra with varying amounts of iron, sodium, calcium and magnesium:
     

      (Note that the darker amphiboles are referred to as hornblende.)

       The double chain structure of amphibole is shown here as well:

       Amphibole shares the "two or both" Greek prefix of "amphi" with amphitheater, a theater on both sides, and amphibians, animals who live both on land and in water.

      The cleavage planes of amphiboles are at 124 degrees and 56 degrees:

        In cross-section, amphiboles show these cleavage planes:

     And in the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), these are further amplified:

       Amphiboles and Antimetaboles ~~ Antimetaboles and Amphiboles:
Criss-crossing minerals and words, words and minerals since October, 2014.

    Any good amphiboles or antimetaboles to share?

    And, by the way, "criss-cross applesauce" is what I say to get Maizie to smile like this:

      
      Either that or "antimetaboles" ;-).

Steph