Frog cortex as a chiral STF
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Akhlesh,
I’ve been thinking about your talk on sculptured thin films (STF) in the International Embryo Physics Course, and realized I saw them once before, in Mike Danolchik’s talk on the chiral structure of the surface of dividing frog eggs. There is a layer of cytoplasm just under the cell membrane that can be up to 10 microns thick, called cortex or ectoplasm. Many membrane proteins extend radially into it, and many cytoskeletal supramolecular structures are anchored there. Unfortunately Mike missed your talk. May I suggest that the two of you get together, perhaps in Second Life®, and see if you can find optical methods to explore the STF structure of frog egg cortex? If something comes of it, hopefully the two of you will report back to us in class. Thanks.
Yours, -Dick
Dr. Richard Gordon, Professor, Radiology, University of Manitoba GA216, HSC, 820 Sherbrook Street, Winnipeg R3A 1R9 Canada
E-mail: gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca, Skype: DickGordonCan, Second Life: Paleo Darwin, Cell: 1-(204) 995-7125
Embryo Physics Course: http://embryophysics.org/;
http://bookswithwings.ca; Adjunct Scientist: TRLabs, http://www.win.trlabs.ca/
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/medicine/radiology/stafflist/rgordon.html
Affiliate, Institute of Industrial Mathematical Sciences (IIMS), http://www.umanitoba.ca/institutes/iims/
Scientist, Manitoba Institute of Child Health (MICH), http://www.mich.ca/
Principal Scientific Advisor, EvoGrid: http://www.evogrid.org
Akhlesh Lakhtakia
I shall be glad to speak to you by phone. Please let me know your telephone number.
Bye now.
Akhlesh
Dick: Thank you.