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In smaller establishments it might be a key dangling on a string and a lump of wood, but it amounts to the same thing.

“When you see instruments up close, you hear the bow on a string, you hear the grit. I’ve worked with filmmakers surprised to hear what real live music sounds like, because so many people have never had that experience. It’s a huge part of keeping real music alive.“

Scott Wardlaw, 76, president of the Altadena Christmas Tree Lane Assn., pulls on a string of lights while hanging lights on the massive deodar cedars on Santa Rosa Avenue.

Their study on mouse brain cells shows that the cells' axons -- the armlike structures that reach out and exchange information with other brain cells -- are not the cylindrical tubes often pictured in books and on websites but more like pearls on a string.

The scientists also used mathematical modeling to see if the axon membrane influenced the shape or presence of the pearl on a string structure.