From Kuru to Nucleation, Aggregation, Polymerization and Crystallization in Biology and Medicine - Molecules: Nucleation, Aggregation and Crystallization - page 7

or montmorillonite clay deposits within brain cells — along with heavy
elements as the diet provided. These lay dormant for decades until trig-
gered later in life causing specific neuronal damage that led to either lytico
or bodig.

Nucleation is speleology

In exploring caves speleologists are familiar with nearly identical formations
surrounding a fallen and shattered stalagmite or stalactite — very much like
the rings of small mushrooms around an old large mushroom on the forest
floor or the ring of young sequoia saplings around an old dead tree trunk.
They often resemble even the odd idiosyncrasies in the parent formation.
At times a cavern of brown “toadstools” or one of the pink “phallic”
organ-pipe cactuses is filled with dozens or hundreds of uncannily similar
replicas. Then, several galleries below the dark brown “toadstools” in a
gallery of pink “phalluses” stands a dark brown toadstool from nucleant
which has tumbled down millions of years ago to the lower gallery from
the “toadstools” above.

Nucleation in extragalactic space

The odd patterns of distant galaxies of billions of stars are well-known to
all amateur astronomers who have viewed in awe the thousands of photo-
graphs we now have of them. They are by no means random patterns of
stars, but lend themselves rather easily to classification according to sim-
ilarities in appearance, as do most patterns in geophysics. These similar
patterns appear in groups or in a very small fraction of the 2 sterradions

of space around us. The nucleation of such patterns across distances of
huge numbers of light years is certainly cause for wonder.

π

References

Brown P, Rau EH, Johnson BK, Bacote AE, Gibbs CJ Jr, Gajdusek DC.
(2000) New studies on the heat resistance of hamster-adapted scrapie