Marine worm with extraordinary vision
April 12, 2024 1:41 AM Subscribe
Marine worm with extraordinary vision "The wide-eyed sea worm Vanadis has long interested the world's vision scientists. But the worm has been difficult to study because it lives in the open sea and is only active at night. Now a research team has managed to locate an Italian worm colony and can establish that the worm has a completely unique sight." [paper]
If there's something important in that twitter link, could someone please convey it here? Any links to that wretched site should be marked with content warning signs.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:41 AM on April 12 [10 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:41 AM on April 12 [10 favorites]
(With reference to that-which-was-Twitter, in case people who still have accounts there can’t see it, posting a link to a thread results in non-logged-in viewers seeing exactly one post, no replies, no thread, no context, no way to go further without creating an account. It makes links to the site essentially useless, unless that single post includes all the content you wished to share.)
posted by caution live frogs at 5:56 AM on April 12 [12 favorites]
posted by caution live frogs at 5:56 AM on April 12 [12 favorites]
Another county heard from! As noted in the article, hi-res vision has evolved (independently we think) in arthropods, vertebrates and cephalopods (octopus) and the trait has been built from quite different building blocks. In vertebrates, the nerves run in front of the retina where all the photo-sensing cells are plugged in. In cephalopods, much more sensibly because they're designed by Kanaloa, the nerves run (out of sight) behind the retina. Arthropods have a developed another architecture again, based on ranks of hexagonal units called ommatidia. But all of these systems seem to have recruited "the same" transcription factor (a gene whose product switches on other genes) - called Pax6 which is, at least for the central chunk, very highly conserved [link designed to rot in 7 days] between insects and mammals.
Next Q to ask of these polychaete worms: is their eye-devt is Pax6 independent.
Evolution is all bricolage - the Great God Kludge rummaging through their toolkit to see what might work to serve this project or fix this problem.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:01 AM on April 12 [18 favorites]
Next Q to ask of these polychaete worms: is their eye-devt is Pax6 independent.
Evolution is all bricolage - the Great God Kludge rummaging through their toolkit to see what might work to serve this project or fix this problem.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:01 AM on April 12 [18 favorites]
MetaFilter: an Italian worm colony
posted by Foosnark at 6:33 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
posted by Foosnark at 6:33 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
If there's something important in that twitter link, could someone please convey it here?
It's mostly a recap of the paper, more or less covered in the video
posted by dhruva at 6:51 AM on April 12
It's mostly a recap of the paper, more or less covered in the video
posted by dhruva at 6:51 AM on April 12
I know we're always noting potential aliases but Italian Worm Colony is worth a mention
posted by elkevelvet at 7:30 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
posted by elkevelvet at 7:30 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
If this interests you, you might also like Ed Yong's recent An Immense World, which is all about animal senses.
posted by praemunire at 8:30 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 8:30 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
This is pretty interesting, and the researcher's ( Michael Bok at Lund) enthusiasm and delight is spectacular.
posted by bluesky43 at 9:01 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
posted by bluesky43 at 9:01 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
babe would you still love me if i was a marine worm with extraordinary vision
posted by cortex at 9:48 AM on April 12
posted by cortex at 9:48 AM on April 12
I know the conflict of interest statement is mandatory, but sometimes I like to try to imagine what possible conflicts of interest could exist in a paper like this - perhaps one of the authors is in the pocket of Big Worm?
posted by 1adam12 at 10:01 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 10:01 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
perhaps one of the authors is in the pocket of Big Worm
Ugh, is there nowhere we can be free of Dune politics? ;-)
posted by johnabbe at 10:23 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
Ugh, is there nowhere we can be free of Dune politics? ;-)
posted by johnabbe at 10:23 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
A human vision researcher called Rayport!
A great post dhruva. Very beguiling graphics and a lighter approach to life, maybe it was the 5Litre jug of wine.
posted by unearthed at 1:08 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]
A great post dhruva. Very beguiling graphics and a lighter approach to life, maybe it was the 5Litre jug of wine.
posted by unearthed at 1:08 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]
"Marine worm with extraordinary vision" makes me think it has a carefully-laid-out plan for a postcapitalist society.
posted by biogeo at 8:55 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 8:55 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]
Great post! :-)
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 11:49 PM on April 12
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 11:49 PM on April 12
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posted by pracowity at 4:16 AM on April 12