a series of tubes

May 10, 2018 8:07 AM

Cells use tunneling nanotubes to communicate and aid one another: long form science journalism by Vivian Callier. "These fragile structures are appearing not only in the context of conditions such as cancer, AIDS and neurodegenerative diseases, but also in normal embryonic development."
posted by exogenous (3 comments total)

This is very cool. Can't say I understand all of it, but I forwarded it to my son, who's a bio major. Thanks!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:58 AM on May 10, 2018

Finally biology seems plausible. Until now it just never seemed plausible to me — it never felt like the known mechanisms were enough to explain the emergent behavior.
posted by lastobelus at 10:31 AM on May 10, 2018

"Finally biology seems plausible. Until now it just never seemed plausible to me — it never felt like the known mechanisms were enough to explain the emergent behavior."

What do you mean? Like, before this you were skeptical of the whole pursuit or what? Cells having little tubies to swap material is cool and all, but I'm not sure why it's revolutionary to you.
posted by GoblinHoney at 11:03 AM on May 10, 2018 [1 favorite]