- Industry: Government
- Number of terms: 30456
- Number of blossaries: 0
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NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
The building block of a protein. Twenty different amino acids are used to synthesize proteins. The shape and other properties of each protein is dictated by its precise sequence of amino acids. Humans must include adequate amounts of 9 of the 20 amino acids in their diet. These "essential" amino acids cannot be synthesized from other precursors.
Industry:Natural environment
The lower part of a cnidarian polyp, into which the distal portion of the polyp, the anthocodium (which includes the mouth and the tenacles) is withdrawn.
Industry:Natural environment
The scientific study of the physics of organisms, their biological structure and processes.
Industry:Natural environment
A crack or fracture in the Earth's crust accompanied by a displacement of one side of the fracture. Movement along the fault can cause earthquakes or, in the process of mountain-building, can release underlying magma and permit it to rise to the surface.
Industry:Natural environment
A hyperbaric steel enclosure used to treat victims of decompression sickness (the "bends") in which the air pressure is first gradually increased and then gradually decreased. This shrinks the nitrogen bubbles and allows the nitrogen to safely diffuse out of the victim's tissues.
Industry:Natural environment
A nonspecific term for small organisms that can be seen only with the aid of a microscope. The term encompasses viruses, bacteria, yeasts, molds,and protists. The term, however, is used most frequently in refererence to bacteria.
Industry:Natural environment
A single-celled structure in red algae that produces diploid carpospores on the carposporophyte.
Industry:Natural environment
A thin membrane covering the body of a gonangium, the reproductive polyp of a colonial hydrozoan.
Industry:Natural environment
An artificial, single or multilaminar vesicle, made from a lipid, that is used for the delivery of a variety of biological molecules or molecular complexes to cells, e.g., drug delivery and gene transfer. Liposomes are also used to study membranes and membrane proteins.
Industry:Natural environment