Category: F
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Falafel
The Middle Eastern dish known as falafel is made by deep-frying balls of ground chickpeas and hot pepper, and then serving them in a pita with tahini sauce. Its name, introduced to English in the 1950s, derives from the Arabic word for hot pepper—filfil—a word that may represent the sound a person makes after biting…
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Fajita
One of the things that distinguishes a fajita from a fascist is the habit of the one to sit on your plate, aromatic and steaming, and of the other to goose-step past the Fuhrer. Despite such differences, the two words are ultimately related to one another: both derive from an Indo-European source that meant bundle.…
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Faggot
When the word faggot appeared in English in the fourteenth century, it simply meant bundle, specifically a bundle of sticks or twigs tied together for kindling. This original sense lies behind most of the later senses of faggot, including a culinary one: in British kitchens, a faggot is a little ball of minced pork, liver,…
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Futile cycle
An enzyme-catalyzed set of cyclic reactions that results in release of thermal energy (heat) through the hydrolysis of ATP (adenosine triphosphate). The hydrolysis of ATP is normally coupled to other cycles and reactions in which the energy released is metabolically used. However, futile cycles would appear to waste the energy of ATP as heat—except when…
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Fusogenic agent
Any compound, virus, etc., that causes cells to fuse together. For example, one of the effects of the HIV (i.e., AIDS-causing) viruses is to cause the T cells of the human immune system to fuse (causing collapse of the immune system).
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Fusion toxin
A fusion protein that consists of a toxic protein (domain) plus a cell receptor binding region (protein domain). The cell receptor portion (of the total fusion toxin molecule) delivers the toxin directly to the (diseased) cell, thus sparing other healthy tissues from the effect of the toxin.
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Fusion protein
A protein consisting of all or part of the amino acid sequences (known as the “domain”) of two or more proteins. Formed by fusing the two protein-encoding genes (which causes the ribosome to subsequently produce the fusion protein). This fusion is often done deliberately, either to put the expression of one of the (fused) genes…
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Fusarium moniliforme
One of the Fusarium fungi.
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Fusarium
A genus of fungus, also known as “scab,” that infests certain grains (e.g., wheat Triticum aestivum, com or maize Zea mays L., etc.) during growing seasons in which climate (e.g., high humidity, cool weather) and other conditions combine to enable rapid growth/proliferation of the fungus. In wheat, (fusarium head blight) fungus infestation causes the wheat…
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Furanose
A sugar molecule containing the five-membered furan ring.