The planarian is just a little, flat worm that lives in dark places, like the bottom of ponds. It has one secret skill, though, and it’s a good one: The planarian is incredibly good at regenerating. It can grow back its tail. It can grow back its head. It can grow back its body from either of those shorn-off bits. If you snip off both its head and tail, one worm can become three worms. And all three may share the same memories.
Showing posts with label worm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label worm. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Wednesday, 17 July 2013
Worm Named After Physicist Max Planck
The decorated theoretical physicist Max Planck is getting another posthumous accolade: his own nematode.
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| CREDIT: Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology |
The hitchhiking worm, Pristionchus maxplancki, is the first species to bear the name of the German scientist, a pioneer of quantum theory who died in 1947.
The new species measures just a millimeter long and was found piggy-backing on a stag beetle collected from an oak forest in Fukushima province, Japan. It was discovered by a group of researchers studying the self-fertilizing hermaphrodites Pristionchus pacificus at a lab in the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.
Friday, 12 October 2012
Meet Yoda, the deep-sea acorn worm
A worm from an ecosystem far,
far away on the ocean floor has been named after the Star Wars character Yoda.
Yoda
purpurata is
one of three new species of deep-sea acorn worms discovered 1.5 miles beneath
the Atlantic.
Scientists coined the name
after large lips on either side of the creature's head reminded them of the
Jedi master's floppy ears.
The other part of the worm's name
is Latin for purple and describes its colour.
The Yoda worm, technically
known as an enteropneust, is described in the latest issue of the journal Invertebrate Biology.
A remotely-operated robot
submersible collected the specimen during a research mission along the
Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Iceland and the Azores.
Professor Monty Priede, from
the University of Aberdeen, said: "Our colleague in California, Nick
Holland, the world authority on enteropneusts, chose the name Yoda for the new
genus characterised by its large ear-like lips.
"There is much interest
in acorn worms from the point of view of understanding the early evolution of
the vertebrates. Whilst they are not strictly a missing link in our own
evolution, they give an insight into what the lifestyle of our remote ancestors
might have been like."
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