New Scientist
Image: oceandesetoiles
Tug of war could well be the oldest game in the world. Cells use it for division, and now researchers have measured the forces involved when an amoeba plays the game.
Hirokazu Tanimoto and Masaki Sano at the University of Tokyo, Japan, studied what happens during the division of Dictyostelium – a slime mould that has barely changed through eons of evolution. The amoeba uses tiny projections or “feet” to gain traction on a surface.
The pair placed the amoeba on a flexible surface embedded with fluorescent beads. They used traction force microscopy to measure how the organism deformed the pattern of beads: the greater the deformation, the greater the force. Read more on newscientist.com…
