| dark adaptation | The adjustment of the eye occurring under reduced illumination in which the sensitivity to light is greatly increased or the light threshold is greatly reduced. Dark adaptation is slower than light adaptation. During dark adaptation rhodopsin is built up in the retinal rods. (12 Dec 1998) |
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| dark cell | Cell's in eccrine sweat glands having many ribosomes and mucoid secretory granules. (05 Mar 2000) |
| dark current | <physiology> Current caused by constant influx of sodium ions into the rod outer segment of retinal photoreceptors and that is blocked by light (leading to hyperpolarization). The plasma membrane sodium channel is controlled through a cascade of amplification reactions initiated by photon capture by rhodopsin in the disc membrane. (18 Nov 1997) |
| dark field illumination | <microscopy> Any method of illumination which illuminates the specimen but does not admit light directly to the objective. It may be by substage (dark field) condensers, by stagespot lighting, by special condensers fitted around special objectives for reflected illumination or by the slit ultramicroscope. (05 Aug 1998) |
| dark field imaging | <microscopy> Using a single diffracted beam to form the image in a transmission electron microscope. This causes all regions of the specimen not of the same crystal structure and orientation as the region which produced the diffracted beam to be represented as very dark in the final image, allowing phase differentiation visually in the transmission electron microscope. (05 Aug 1998) |
| dark field microscopy | <procedure> A system of microscopy in which particles are illuminated at a very low angle from the side so that the background appears dark and the objects are seen by diffracted and reflected patches of light against a dark background. (18 Nov 1997) |
| dark field objective | <microscopy> Certain objectives for high-power, dark fieldwork equipped with iris diaphragms or funnel stops so that their apertures may be reduced to correspond to the dark field con-denser with which they are used. (05 Aug 1998) |
| dark field slides | <microscopy> Owing to the exacting demands of dark field illumination, not only must the microscope slide be especially clean, but also the glass of which the slide is composed must be optically clear under dark field conditions. The glass should not fluoresce. (05 Aug 1998) |
| dark field stop | <microscopy> A central stop for obtaining a dark field effect for low-power objectives. It is customarily used with a high numerical aperture, bright field condenser. (05 Aug 1998) |
| dark reaction | <biochemistry, plant biology> The reactions in photosynthesis that occur after NADPH and ATP production and that take place in the stroma of the chloroplast. By means of the reaction, carbon dioxide is incorporated into carbohydrate. (18 Nov 1997) |
| dark t2 lesion | <radiology> (short T2), acute haemorrhage (deoxyHb), haemosiderin, physiologic iron (basal ganglia, etc.), mucinous lesions (?) most abnormalities have long T1 and T2 (dark/bright). Compare: bright T1 lesion. (07 Mar 2000) |
| dark-adapted eye | An eye that has been in darkness or semidarkness and has undergone regeneration of rhodopsin (visual purple), which renders it more sensitive to reduced illumination. Synonym: scotopic eye. (05 Mar 2000) |
| dark-field condenser | An apparatus for throwing reflected light through the microscope field, so that only the object to be examined is illuminated, the field itself being dark. (05 Mar 2000) |
| dark-field microscope | <instrument> A microscope that has a special condenser and objective with a diaphragm or stop that scatters light from the object observed, with the result that the object appears bright on a dark background. (05 Mar 2000) |
| dark-ground illumination | dark-field illumination |