Ciliary movements in protozoa exhibit metachronal wave-like coordination, in which a constant phase difference is maintained between adjacent cilia. It is at present generally thought that metachronal waves require hydrodynamic coupling between adjacent cilia and the extracellular fluid. To test this hypothesis, we aspirated a Paramecium cell using a micropipette which completely sealed the sur...

Needs which have arisen in ophthalmic research have motivated the development of a six degree of freedom parallel micromanipulator. The first application of the tool will be in the treatment of retinal vemus occlusion, for which micron-scale spherical movement of a glass micropipette tip inside the eye is required. The initial speration mode will be open loop while future operation will be in a...

Binding of the plant lectin wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) to erythrocyte membranes causes membrane rigidification. One of our objectives has been to directly measure the effects of WGA binding on membrane rigidity and to relate rigidification to the kinetics and levels of WGA binding. Our other objective has been to measure the strength of adhesion and mechanics of cell separation for erythrocyte...

To record extracellular nerve activity, wires or polyethylene suction electrodes are commonly used, which are modified according to particular experimental requirements. For electrophysiological studies in a dissected animal, a length of the nerve under investigation may be lifted on to silver wires (Pearon, Stein & Malhotra, 1972), or a fine wire hook (Wilkens & Wolf, 1974), often under minera...

The electrical properties of structures within an intact cell were examined by impalement with micropipette electrodes. Mean potential differences (PDs) measured from interphase HeLa cells showed that internal membrane-bounded compartments such as the nucleus, Golgi region, and the mitochondria were more negative than the cytoplasm with respect to an external grounding electrode. The nuclear PD...