I Done Seen About Everything…Until I Seen A Worm Do Calculus
By: John Vinson
Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle is pretty much the only thing I can say after discovering this. I shouldn’t say that I ‘discovered’ as all I did was read an article about it. Anyways, a biologist by the name of Shawn Lockery has been researching how certain animals sense better taste in foods than others. The conclusion has been reached that atleast in worms, the sense is performed through Calculus.
Lockery states the importance of his research, “The more we know about how taste and smell function — not just at the level of primary sensory neurons, but downstream in the brain — the better prepared we will be to understand when the system is broken”
The function that the worm performs for devising where good tasting food is compared to bad is quite simple. Derivatives is a form of calculus that measures the fluctuation of change in something at a certain time. This mathematical process is what is used in the neurons of the worm to determine where certain foods are. Worms are attracted to higher concentrations of salt. So there are two separate neurons in the Worm’s brain that tell it that salt is ahead or if it needs to change direction. To prove this theory, Lockery implanted capsaicin which is a spice found in chili peppers into the worms. For one instance he implated it into the right neuron which tells the worm to continue forward because of higher salt concentration. Then he implanted it in the left neuron, which tells the worm that higher levels of salt are elsewhere so it would change direction. The experiment was a success and has opened up what Lockery hopes to be a better perception of how our own sense work.
The practical uses of this experiment are pretty groundbreaking. If Lockery was able to devise how a worm’s senses work at the most basic level, then it could provide insight into how our own senses work. If this were to happen, we could one day find the direct reasons why some people’s senses are weaker. Or could provide cures or solutions for people which have no senses at all.