Thursday, February 28, 2013
Tadpoles Grow Eyes On Their Tales
On the 27 of February, 2013, scientists found a way to cure blindness in tadpoles. They did this by getting the eye tissue from unborn African clawed frogs and implanting it into blind tadpole's tail. They then waited 24 hours. During these 24 hours nerves were starting to grow around the tadpoles nervous system. This is significant because sight is connected to the nervous system, which means that there was growth in the tadpole. Then the tadpoles were placed in a circular area and tested by if they were attracted to a red light and a blue light. About half of the tadpoles were able to see the lights.
NOS Themes
Role of Motivation and curiosity: Because the scientists were curious to see if they could cure blindness in tadpoles.
Science is Collaborative: It took lots of past research to find a way to cure the blindness in tadpoles
Person's view and experience can influence data: If scientists didn't personally care about curing blindness they would not have worked on this experience.
Work Cited
http://www.livescience.com/27517-tadpoles-sport-eyes-on-tails.html
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This article is so fascinating! Who would have thought that scientist can just implant eyes on a tadpole's body? Could this discovery lead to therapies or implants for humans?
ReplyDeleteResearcher Michael Levin states, "These findings suggest that the brain has remarkable plasticity and may actually take a survey of its body configuration to make use of different body arrangements." I also learned that the mutation did not kill the tadpoles only because they were still embryos when their anatomy was changed.
Next, researchers look to answer three other questions:
1. Which brain regions are processing sensory data.
2. How many extra eyes could a frog's brain handle.
3. How does the brain even know that the piece of tissue on the tail is providing visual data.
Link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/tadpole-eyes-graft-blind-animals-see-brain-plasticity_n_2781122.html