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TENSION AT THE HIGHLY STRETCHED SURFACE OF SEA‐URCHIN EGGS *
Author(s) -
YONEDA MITSUKI
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
development, growth and differentiation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.864
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1440-169X
pISSN - 0012-1592
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-169x.1980.00039.x
Subject(s) - sea urchin , tension (geology) , surface tension , materials science , oceanography , zoology , biology , composite material , geology , microbiology and biotechnology , physics , thermodynamics , ultimate tensile strength
Unfertilized eggs of the sea urchin, Paracentrotus lividus , were placed between two parallel plates and flattened by a definite force to 20% of their original diameter, with two‐fold increase in their surface area. The resulting tension at their surface was calculated from the relation of force and deformation. In spite of this extensive stretching, the tension was found to be not more than 0.2 dyne/cm, while under conditions involving mild stretching (3%) the tension still amounted to 0.12 dyne/cm. These results do not support Mela's theory (7, 8), which predicts a transition of the mechanical properties of the egg surface from a ‘subelastic’ to ‘elastic’ state when the surface is stretched to beyond 34% of its initial area.