Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: Georgia on 30/11/2017 13:59:39

Title: Do animals that reproduce by splitting retain any memories?
Post by: Georgia on 30/11/2017 13:59:39

Cosmo asked this during the Naked Scientists program flatworm piece this past Sunday : https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/what-can-we-learn-immortal-animals

If any portion can regrow into a whole worm...

Can you train them to do anything? If so, do both offsprings remember?

What do you think?

Title: Re: Do animals that reproduce by splitting retain any memories?
Post by: evan_au on 30/11/2017 20:31:14

I saw a lab photo where an amoeba was left on a Petri dish with a sprinkling of nanoparticles, so you could see its path.
After it divided in two, the two paths diverged, and they were almost a mirror-image of each other, including the turns.
This placed the two daughter microbes far apart on the Petri dish, so they could spread forth and multiply.

Perhaps its future moves in a uniform environment are genetically determined; having the opposite halves play out opposite parts of this genetic determinism helps them make most use of the available food in their environment?

Title: Re: Do animals that reproduce by splitting retain any memories?
Post by: chris on 02/12/2017 10:30:20

They'll retain epigenetic memories, of course.