

Tunnelling Nanotubes: Life's Secret Network - qaexl
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026821.400-tunnelling-nanotubes-lifes-secret-network.html?full=true

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mad44
Now network science and graph algorithms might have some applications in
explaining some of the biological phenomena.

Watkins thinks that the dendritic cells could be using nanotubes to recruit
other cells. Conventional wisdom says that once a dendritic cell is activated,
it migrates to the lymph nodes to alert the immune system. Sometimes, it might
have to travel from the tip of one's finger to the armpit - a long and
perilous journey that could result in failure. But if a dendritic cell first
recruits other sentinels, and all of them march towards the lymph nodes
simultaneously, there is much less chance of the message being lost. "It
allows you to amplify the response," says Watkins. "That's all hypothesis
really. We have to prove it."

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qaexl
I know someone who was using graph algorithims to study biological phonomena.
Given a set of correlations, say, Protein A correlates significantly with
Protein B, but inversely proportional to Protein C, what is the minimal graph
that describes the relationships among Proteins A, B, and C? The
bioinformatics folks apparently have been doing this for a while now.

What will be interesting is how the presence of tunnels affect these analysis,
or better yet, whether mining the data would reveal the presence of the
tunnelling nanotubes.

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albertcardona
If tunnelling nanotubes are real and widespread as the article and cited
articles claim, we are in front of a major, once-in-a-century discovery in
biology.

Basically, the assumption that cells are enclosed units with isolated internal
cytoplasm--the very definition of the word 'cell', over 100 years old--would
no longer hold.

As the article explains, medicine is up for a review. Many aspects of protein
prions, HIV, and who knows how many other illnesses are suddenly explainable.

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qaexl
Stem cell researches have found that in order to grow a healthy organ, the
progenitor cells must be in a certain physical arrangement. For example,
bladder stem cells won't produce a bladder unless it is in some sort of rough
surface. The tunnelling nanotubes can certainly explain this.

There are also other engineering disciplines that analyzes biology as a source
of inspiration. I think abstracting the concept of transit, hidden networks
will go a long way towards constructing self-building nanotechs.

