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"...being predictive, being right about the future, is not the point of any given story or novel. The point is about exploring as wide a range of possibilities as possible."
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Experiments with RNA have, in fact, demonstrated actual chemical memeory transfer. Michigan psychologist James McConnell has shown this with Planaria, or flatworms. He conditions them by electrical shock to contract when a light is flashed. Then he grinds the worms up and feeds them to untrained worms, who are then able to learn to contract twice as fast as their predecessors. What happens is that the first group of worms form new RNA which molds new proteins containing the message that light is a signal to contract. Then the second group, having consumed the memory proteins, don't need to manufacture so much of their own; they have swallowed memory, so to speak. The same kind of experiments have been performed with rats wherein they are taught to fear darkness, after which their brains are ground up and injected into mice, which then react to darkness the same way. RNA, therefore, chemically converts experiences into learning which can then be transfered to the cells of another creature. In 1964, Hyden and Egyhazi found that rats trained to use their nonpreferred paws to obtain food showed both higher amounts and different types of RNA in the brain region controlling that paw. Control animals who used their prefeoued paws (and hence required no new learning) showed no changes in RNA. Simply showing changes in RNA as the result of learning, however, does not explain whether the RNA molecules carry the memories, or if the changes in RNA are the result of other brain changes caused by memory formation.
All of which has lead McConnell to speculate whimsically: "Why should we waste all the knowledge a distinguished professor has accumulated simply because he's reached retirement age?" Instead, McConnell proposes, the students should eat the professor.
In 1970, Ungar reported the isolation of an extract obtained from the brains of mice that had learned to avoid shock by leaving a dark compartment. When injected into naive mice, it caused them to leave their normally preferred dark chambers, in the absence of experiences with aversive consequences. Ungar named this extract scotophobin (a Greek word meaning "fear of the dark"). Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
Festo BionicSwift Bird Robots Described In 1930
'Bird-like robots now descended from the ceiling of the theatre...'
Robotics Jobs In The Food Industry
'The efficient robot waiter of the Sky Club had cleared away the remnants of an epicurean meal.'
Prototype 3D Printer Could Print Arteries In Seconds
'...in the tank the new body and the new mind and memory and life has taken almost instant form.'
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'pirate three-vee satellites sanded out of orbit...'
Low-Cost Gel Pulls Water From Atmosphere Like Star Wars Vaporator
'The atmosphere yielded its moisture with reluctance. It had to be coaxed down...'
Pleasure Model Replicants Now Available
'Want a life-companion... sir, I can get you up any style you want.'
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