Word: planarias
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Other experiments based on the RNA-protein theory may demonstrate actual chemical memory transfer. Among the most publicized are those of University of Michigan Psychologist James McConnell and Neurochemist Georges Ungar of the Baylor College of Medicine. McConnell works with planaria, or flatworms, conditioning them by electrical shock to contract when a light is flashed. He then grinds them up and feeds them to untrained worms. Once they have cannibalized their brothers, the worms learn to contract twice as fast as their predecessors. What may happen, McConnell theorizes, is that the first batch of worms form new RNA, which synthesizes...
...addition to his classic History and the companion Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology, Boring has written psychology texts, a research monograph on The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness, a war manual (Psychology for the Fighting Man), articles on planaria, dementia precox, sensations in the alimentary canal, mental measurement, and the role of great men in the progress of science. Particularly famous papers dealt with the return of sensation in the arm after nerves have been cut, an experiment he performed on himself, and the "moon illusion"--the difference of the apparent size of the moon when...
...encouraged. They are working on ways to reduce RNA's undesirable side effects and are trying a tablet form. Because his investigations called for far more liberties than can be taken with human subjects, the University of Michigan's Psychologist James V. McConnell, 36, turned to flatworms (Planaria), regarded as the most primitive creatures capable of true "learning." In 150 to 250 lessons, the worms learned that the flashing on of an electric light meant that they should contract and brace themselves for an electric shock. With this Pavlovian conditional reflex, high-IQ flatworms heeded the light warning...
Recently removed from the wilds of Michigan to the woolies of California is a small group of dedicated men and women intent, through their work, upon undermining the national leadership of this great community of humane scholars. They, the hard-bitten agents of The Planaria Research Group--ominous appellation--will know long before our world-view-imbued scholiasts, whether it is that two-headed planaria exceed single-headed planaria in intelligence, why it is that planaria who eat educated planaria are themselves more speedily educable, whence it comes that poisoned planaria...
Highlights of last week's convention of the National Academy of Sciences at Brown University (Providence, R. I.): Totipotency. When a flatworm (Planaria maculata, which inhabits fresh water) is cut into pieces, each piece will grow into a healthy and flawless new flatworm. Just how this marvelously convenient process of regeneration in lower animals works, no one knows. One theory is that their bodies contain undifferentiated, "totipotent" cells capable of growing into any organ under some unexplained architectural guidance. Professor James Walter Wilson of Brown University hazarded the guess that higher animals, perhaps even man, may harbor these cells...