Tau

In a study reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers describe how a synthetic drug, called antisense oligonucleotide, reduced the production and in some cases cleared clumps of tau in the brain.

Astronomers have detected swirls of diamonds, hundreds of thousands of times smaller than a grain of sand, in the protoplanetary or circumstellar disks of three baby star systems in the Milky Way - V892 Tau, HD 97048, and MWC 297.

Hence it appears that the spits, or skewers, on which and to which the lamb was fixed and fastened in order to be roasted, assumed the form of a cross, not such a tau-cross as is engraved in Dr. Oliver’s Historical Landmarks of Freemasonry, vol. i. p. 80. having three arms only like the Greek letter tau; but a cross like the ancient Hebrew tau, with four arms, though not necessarily all of equal length.

In the Spanish translation of Sallust, by the Infant Don Gabriel in 1772, called the Infant Sallust, there is a curious dissertation by Father Perez Bayer on the resemblance between the ancient Hebrew and Phœnician alphabets, in which it is observed that the Hebrew Tau was written in pure Phœnician, […]

The tau is both the 19ᵗʰ letter of the Greek alphabet, and also the 22ⁿᵈ letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this context, the Hebrew tau or tav is more pertinent.

Nor ſhall we take in the myſticall Tau, or the Croſſe of our bleſſed Saviour, which having in ſome deſcriptions an Empedon or croſſing foot-ſtay, made not one ſingle tranſverſion.

(includes a list of coordinate terms)

Quite what that job is remains obscure, but one theory is that it is to stabilise another protein called tau, which is supposed in turn to keep in shape the tubular ‘skeleton’ of a neuron.