(n.) Any one of numerous species of Spongiae, or Porifera. See Illust. and Note under Spongiae.
(n.) The elastic fibrous skeleton of many species of horny Spongiae (keratosa), used for many purposes, especially the varieties of the genus Spongia. The most valuable sponges are found in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and on the coasts of Florida and the West Indies.
(n.) One who lives upon others; a pertinaceous and indolent dependent; a parasite; a sponger.
(n.) Any spongelike substance.
(n.) Dough before it is kneaded and formed into loaves, and after it is converted into a light, spongy mass by the agency of the yeast or leaven.
(n.) Iron from the puddling furnace, in a pasty condition.
(n.) Iron ore, in masses, reduced but not melted or worked.
(n.) A mop for cleaning the bore of a cannon after a discharge. It consists of a cylinder of wood, covered with sheepskin with the wool on, or cloth with a heavy looped nap, and having a handle, or staff.
(n.) The extremity, or point, of a horseshoe, answering to the heel.
(v. t.) To cleanse or wipe with a sponge; as, to sponge a slate or a cannon; to wet with a sponge; as, to sponge cloth.
(v. t.) To wipe out with a sponge, as letters or writing; to efface; to destroy all trace of.
(v. t.) Fig.: To deprive of something by imposition.
(v. t.) Fig.: To get by imposition or mean arts without cost; as, to sponge a breakfast.
(v. i.) To suck in, or imbile, as a sponge.
(v. i.) Fig.: To gain by mean arts, by intrusion, or hanging on; as, an idler sponges on his neighbor.
(v. i.) To be converted, as dough, into a light, spongy mass by the agency of yeast, or leaven.
Example Sentences:
(1) The popularly used procedure in Great Britain is that in which a sheet of Ivalon sponge is sutured to the sacrum and wrapped around the rectum thus anchoring it in place.
(2) Similar sponges were reintroduced into four ewes at each of the intervals 1, 3, 5, and 7 days later; three ewes served as controls.
(3) After washing for 7 days and freeze drying the resultant collagen sponge was tested with regard to mechanical, physical, enzymatic degradation properties and biological responses.
(4) The substance benzalconium chloride (BZC) was contained in vaginal sponges (n = 46), pessaries (n = 4) and cream (n = 6) at a dose rate of 1.18%.
(5) Depending on depth regions from which the sponges were collected, differences in occurrence of metabolites were observed.
(6) Turn the sponge out onto the paper, then carefully peel off the lining paper.
(7) The concentrations of NaB3H4-reducible collagen cross-links were determined at the time when collagen fibres and bundles are observed in electron micrographs of connective tissue developing around the implanted Ivalon sponge in adult male rats.
(8) Nonetheless, these donor-reactive CTL rarely constitute more than 0.5% of the T cells recovered from sponge allografts, even at the peak of the rejection response.
(9) Attention is given to the poor design of a disposable cellulose sponge that results in frequent hooking of sutures during microsurgical procedures.
(10) The effects of epidermal growth factor (EGF) on granulation-tissue formation and collagen-gene expression were studied in experimental sponge-induced granulomas in rats.
(11) In spite of the growing variety of materials being used in the manufacture of intraabdominal packs (sponges), no data have been published on their adhesion-producing properties.
(12) Of the 19 women, 4 of 6 sponge users (66%) developed a bacterial vaginosis recurrence (RR 2.93, 95% CI: 1.43-6.02).
(13) Explants of a human sacral chordoma were successfully maintained on collagen-coated coverslips, gelfoam sponge matrices, and Millipore filter platforms for up to 30 days.
(14) A fraction prepared from normal human plasma inhibits the migration of polymorphonuclear and mononuclear leucocytes into inflammatory exudates produced by the intrapleural injection of carrageeman or turpentine by the subcutaneous implantation of polyvinyl sponges in the rat.
(15) These sponges were dissociated both mechanically, which leaves the factor on the cell surface, and by Humphrey's (1963) method, which isolates the factor from the cells.
(16) Five new 20,24-bishomoscalarane sesterterpenes, phyllactones A [1], B [2], C [3], D [4], and E [5], are reported from the sponge Phyllospongia foliascens collected in the waters of the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea.
(17) To determine if alloantigen-induced .N = O production might be operative in vivo, cells that had infiltrated a rat sponge matrix allograft were tested for de novo .N = O production as well as .N = O production upon restimulation with the sensitizing alloantigen.
(18) The fine structure of four glioblastomas and two cerebellar astrocytomas maintained in organ culture systems up to 137 days and 43 days, respectively, using either a three-dimensional sponge foam matrix technic or a Millipore filter platform technic, is described and compared.
(19) The intensity-measuring device in both apparatuses has a mobile disk attached to a motionless axis by a spiral spring; the clamps have fixing screws in the butts of a spong.
(20) Initially, 4-5 days post-operative, the plasma clot maintained the grafted cells in a loose sponge-like sack at the site of implantation.
Starfish
Definition:
(n.) Any one of numerous species of echinoderms belonging to the class Asterioidea, in which the body is star-shaped and usually has five rays, though the number of rays varies from five to forty or more. The rays are often long, but are sometimes so short as to appear only as angles to the disklike body. Called also sea star, five-finger, and stellerid.
(n.) The dollar fish, or butterfish.
Example Sentences:
(1) The kinetics of the membrane current during the anomalous or inward-going rectification of the K current in the egg cell membrane of the starfish Mediaster aequalis were analyzed by voltage clamp.
(2) Using tubulin immunostaining, we found that 6-DMAP did not affect the cortical microtubules and resting female centrioles of prophase-arrested starfish oocytes, whereas it induced a precocious disappearance of spindle fibers when applied to hormone-stimulated oocytes.
(3) When he sits back at the piano and plays Raspberry Beret and Starfish and Coffee and Girls and Boys, they’re beside themselves, and understandably so: he sounds magnificent.
(4) The cockle Cardium tuberculatum responds with a typical escape movement (jumping by foot contractions) when touched by a starfish.
(5) Since these characteristics of the starfish egg poly(A)+ RNA are similar to those of cyclin mRNAs from sea urchin and surf clam eggs, we synthesized a 50-mer antisense-cyclin oligonucleotide probe coding for a part of the sea urchin cyclin cDNA and used this to screen starfish RNA.
(6) The cellular events that take place during reconstruction of larval forms from dissociated embryonic cells of the starfish are investigated by thick and thin sections.
(7) Primary afferent electrical activity can be recorded from the chemoreceptors on the mantle margin that are responsive to starfish scent and also from other physiologically distinct receptors that are responsive to contact with starfish tube feet.
(8) A cDNA clone encoding starfish cyclin B has been isolated and its sequence determined.
(9) The changes in activity of a cytoplasmic maturation-promoting factor (MPF), capable of inducing resumption of meiosis when injected into starfish oocytes, were examined during mouse oocyte maturation.
(10) 1-Methyladenine (1MeAde) is the naturally occurring maturation-inducing hormone of starfish oocytes.
(11) The marine gastropods Acmaea (Collisella) limatula and Acmaea (Notoacmea) scutum respond to distant predatory starfish (i.e.
(12) "There are a number of threats facing the reef, including climate change, coastal developments, agricultural runoff, ocean acidification and outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish.
(13) Fatty acid hydroperoxides (lipoxygenase products) are metabolized to allene oxides by a type of dehydrase that has been detected in plants, corals, and starfish oocytes.
(14) Ross said researchers have identified four new species of fish, a new type of starfish and several new species of crustaceans living in the deepwater reefs.
(15) An assessment by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority cited climate change as the leading threat to the coral ecosystem, with pollution, extreme weather events, and a plague of coral-eating starfish also contributing to its malaise.
(16) This has come about because links have been established between two independent areas of research, one based on a genetic approach using the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe and the second based on a biochemical approach using Xenopus and starfish oocytes.
(17) In the presence of 1 mM hydroxyurea, fertilized eggs of the starfish, Asterina pectinifera, cleaved up to the 256-cell stage and decomposed before blastulation.
(18) Porcine brain tubulin labeled with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) was able to polymerize by itself and co-polymerize with tubulin purified from starfish sperm flagella.
(19) Although caffeine, theophylline, and theobromine supposedly inhibit maturation of oocytes, studies using the starfish oocyte showed that theobromine does not inhibit maturation and the inhibition caused by caffeine and theophylline is reversible.
(20) The acrosome reaction of spermatozoa from the starfish Marthasterias glacialis was induced with the ionophore A23187.