Notre-Dame de Paris (IPA: [nt dam d pai]; French for "Our Lady of Paris"),

also known as Notre-Dame Cathedral or simply Notre-Dame, is a

historic Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the le de la Cit in the fourth
arrondissement of Paris, France.[2]The cathedral is widely considered to be one of
the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and among the largest and most
well-known church buildings in the world. The naturalism of its sculptures
and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture.
As the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Paris, Notre-Dame is the parish that contains
the cathedra, or official chair, of the archbishop of Paris, currently Cardinal Andr
Vingt-Trois.[3] The cathedral treasury is notable for its reliquary which houses some
of Catholicism's most important first-class relics including the purported Crown of
Thorns, a fragment of the True Cross, and one of the Holy Nails.
In the 1790s, Notre-Dame suffered desecration during the radical phase of
the French Revolution when much of its religious imagery was damaged or
destroyed. An extensive restoration supervised by Eugne Viollet-le-Duc began in
1845. A project of further restoration and maintenance began in 1991.
Bishop Maurice de Sully started the construction in 1163. The Cathedral was to be
built in the new Gothic style and had to reflect Paris's status as the capital of the
Kingdom France. It was the first cathedral built on a monumental scale and became
the prototype for future cathedrals in France, like the cathedrals of Amiens, Chartres
or Rheims, just to name the most famous.
The Building
It took until 1345 before the cathedral was completed, partly because the design
was enlarged during construction. The result is an overwhelming building, 128m
long (420 ft) with two 69 meter tall towers (226 ft). The spire, which reaches 90m
(295 ft), was added in the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc. The Notre-Dame Cathedral
has several large rose windows, the northern 13th century window is the most
impressive. The massive window has a diameter of 13.1 meter.
The frontal west facade features three wide portals; above the portals is the Gallery
of Kings - 28 statues of Judean Kings - and higher up are the famous gargoyles and
grotesques. The spectacular eastern flying buttresses at the east side of the
building are 15m wide.

Paramecium (pron. parruh-MEE-cee-uhm, IPA prmisim) is a genus

of unicellular Ciliate protozoa, commonly studied as a representative of the Ciliate
group. Paramecia are widespread in freshwater, brackish and marine environments,
and are often very abundant in stagnant basins and ponds. Because some species
are readily cultivated and easily induced to conjugate and divide, Paramecium has
been widely used in classrooms and laboratories to study biological processes. Its
usefulness as a model organism has caused one ciliate researcher to characterize it
as the "white rat" of the phylum Ciliophora.[1]
Paramecia were among the first ciliates to be seen by microscopists, in the late 17th
century. They were probably known to the Dutch pioneer of protozoology, Antoni
van Leeuwenhoek, and were clearly described by his contemporary Christiaan
Huygens in a letter of 1678.[2] In 1718, the French mathematics teacher and
microscopist Louis Joblot published a description and illustration of a microscopic
"poisson" (fish), which he discovered in an infusion of oak bark in water. Joblot gave
this creature the name "Chausson," or "Slipper," and the phrase "slipper
animalcule" remained in use as a colloquial epithet for Paramecium, throughout the
18th and 19th centuries.[3] The name "Paramecium"constructed from the Greek
(paramks, "oblong") -- was coined in 1752 by the English
microscopist John Hill, who applied the name generally to "Animalcules which have
no visible limbs or tails, and are of an irregularly oblong figure." [4] In 1773, O. F.
Mller, the first researcher to place the genus within theLinnaean system
of taxonomy, adopted the name Paramecium, but changed the spelling
to Paramcium. C. G. Ehrenberg, in a major study of the infusoria published in
1838, restored Hill's original spelling for the genus name, and most researchers
have followed his lead.[5]
Appearance and physical characteristics[edit]
Species of Paramecium range in size from 50 to 330 micrometres in length. Cells
are typically ovoid, elongate, foot- or cigar-shaped. The body of the cell is enclosed
by a stiff but elastic membrane (pellicle), uniformly covered with simple cilia,
hairlike organelles which act like tiny oars to move the organism in one direction.
Nearly all species have closely spaced spindle-shaped trichocysts embedded deeply
in the cellular envelope (cortex) that surrounds the organism. Typically, an anal pore
(cytoproct) is located on the ventralsurface, in the posterior half of the cell. In all
species, there is a deep oral groove running from the anterior of the cell to its
midpoint. This is lined with inconspicuous cilia which beat continuously, drawing
food inside the cell.[6] Paramecia live mainly by heterotrophy, feeding
on bacteria and other small organisms. A few species are mixotrophs, deriving some
nutrients from endosymbiontic algae (chlorella) carried in the cytoplasm of the cell.
[7]

Osmoregulation is carried out by contractile vacuoles, which actively expel water

from the cell to compensate for fluid absorbed by osmosis from its surroundings.

[8]

The number of contractile vacuoles varies from one, to many, depending on

species.[9]
Movement[edit]
Paramecia propel themselves by whiplash movements of their cilia, which are
arranged in tightly spaced rows around the outside of their body. The beat of each
cilium has two phases: a fast "effective stroke," during which the cilium is relatively
stiff, followed by a slow "recovery stroke," during which the cilium curls loosely to
one side and sweeps forward in a counter-clockwise fashion. The densely arrayed
cilia move in a coordinated fashion, with waves of activity moving across the "ciliary
carpet," creating an effect sometimes likened to that of the wind blowing across a
field of grain.[10]
The Paramecium spirals through the water, as it progresses. When it happens to
encounter an obstacle, the "effective stroke" of its cilia is reversed and the organism
swims backward for a brief time, before resuming its forward progress. If it runs into
the solid object again, it will repeat this process, until it can get past the object. [11]
It has been calculated that a Paramecium expends more than half of its energy in
propelling itself through the water. [12] Its method of locomotion has been found to be
less than 1% efficient. This low percentage is, nevertheless, close to the maximum
theoretical efficiency that can be achieved by an organism equipped with cilia as
short as those ofParamecium.[13]

Paramecium, genus of free-living protozoans of the holotrichous order

Hymenostomatida. There are at least eight well-defined species; all can be
cultivated easily in the laboratory. Although they vary in size,
most Paramecium species are about the size of the period at the end of this
sentence. The basic shape varies, depending on the species: P. caudatum is
elongated and gracefully streamlined and P. bursaria resembles a footprint. The
term paramecium is also used to refer to individual organisms in
a Paramecium species.
These microscopic single-celled organisms are completely covered with fine hairlike
filaments (cilia) that beat rhythmically to propel them and to direct bacteria and
other food particles into their mouths. On the ventral surface an oral groove runs
diagonally posterior to the mouth and gullet. Within the gullet, food particles are
transformed into food vacuoles, and digestion takes place within each food vacuole;
waste material is excreted through the anus.

A thin layer of clear, firm cytoplasm (ectoplasm) lies directly beneath the flexible
body membrane (pellicle) and encloses the inner, more fluid portion of the
cytoplasm (endoplasm), which contains granules, food vacuoles, and crystals of
different sizes. Embedded in the ectoplasm are spindle-shaped bodies (trichocysts)
that may be released by chemical, electrical, or mechanical means. Originally
believed to be a defense reaction, they appear to be extruded as a reaction to injury
or for use as an anchoring device.
A paramecium has two, occasionally three, contractile vacuoles located close to the
surface near the ends of the cell. They function in regulating the water content
within the cell and may also be considered excretory structures since the expelled
water contains metabolic wastes.
Paramecia have two kinds of nuclei: a large ellipsoidal nucleus called
a macronucleus and at least one small nucleus called a micronucleus. Both types of
nuclei contain the full complement of genes that bear the hereditary information of
the organism. The organism cannot survive without themacronucleus; it cannot
reproduce without the micronucleus. The macronucleus is the centre of all
metabolic activities of the organism. The micronucleus is a storage site for the
genetic material of the organism. It gives rise to the macronucleus and is
responsible for the genetic reorganization that occurs during conjugation (crossfertilization).