Toxic blast.Predators beware! This sea slug sea slug, name for a marine gastropod mollusk that lacks a shell as an adult and is usually brightly colored. Sea slugs, or nudibranchs, are distributed throughout the world, with the greatest numbers and the largest kinds found in tropical waters. They creep along the bottom or cling to submerged vegetation, usually in water just below the low tide line. Members of a few species swim on the surface in open ocean. Most sea slugs are under 1 in. (2. squirts out a purple cloud of toxic chemicals as self-defense self-defense n. the use of reasonable force to protect oneself or members of the family from bodily harm from the attack of an aggressor, if the defender has reason to believe he/she/they is/are in danger. Self-defense is a common defense by a person accused of assault, battery, or homicide.. How does Aplysia californica (ap-LEE-zha cal-ih-FOR-ni-ka) store this nasty brew without harming itself? Charles Derby, a biologist at Georgia State University, found that the slug holds different toxin-making molecules, or two or more atoms joined together, in separate body compartments. These molecules are harmless until they are mixed together. When threatened, the slug shoots the molecules into another compartment. There, an enzyme starts a chemical reaction chemical reaction, process by which one or more substances may be transformed into one or more new substances. Energy is released or is absorbed, but no loss in total molecular weight occurs. When, for example, water is decomposed, its molecules, each of which consists of one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen, are broken down; the hydrogen atoms then combine in pairs to form hydrogen molecules and the oxygen atoms to form oxygen molecules., producing harmful substances such as ammonia. When a slug spurts out the nasty mix, most predators back away Back away In the context of general equities, to withdraw from a previously declared interest, indication, or transaction; broker-dealer's failure, as a market maker in a given security, to make good on a bid/offer for the minimum quantity.. To learn more about the study on the sea slug, read the press release at this Web site: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005.12/gsu.ssm121605.php Visit this Web site from the Australian Museum to learn more about the defense mechanism defense mechanism, in psychoanalysis, any of a variety of unconscious personality reactions which the ego uses to protect the conscious mind from threatening feelings and perceptions. Sigmund Freud first used defense as a psychoanalytic term (1894), but he did not break the notion into categories, viewing it as a singular phenomenon of repression. of the sea slug: www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=seahatac |
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