While they're not marine and very annoying in your house, fruit fly larvae have an interesting way of sensing light to improve survival. Once their heads are buried in a fruit, it is beneficial to get the rest of the body in that fruit as well. This decreases predation and dessication risk. However, the main larval visual organ ('eye') has already been buried, so how does the larva know whether its behind is sticking out? There's a novel array of neurons along the body wall that respond to light. How these neurons actually detect the light is still a mystery!
So why do I care about fruit flies? Well, unlike Palin, I recognize that fruit flies have been an exemplary model organism for understanding ... well life, including how we work. More directly, I care because I'm studying a cell type in the sea urchin that we believe is involved in detecting light - even though there isn't an "eye" per se. Fruit flies and maybe sea urchins prove that the way that humans work isn't the only way. There are many ways to achieve something - here vision.
So why do I care about fruit flies? Well, unlike Palin, I recognize that fruit flies have been an exemplary model organism for understanding ... well life, including how we work. More directly, I care because I'm studying a cell type in the sea urchin that we believe is involved in detecting light - even though there isn't an "eye" per se. Fruit flies and maybe sea urchins prove that the way that humans work isn't the only way. There are many ways to achieve something - here vision.
Light-avoidance-mediating photoreceptors tile the Drosophila larval body wall, Nature advance online publication 10 November 2010. doi:10.1038/nature09576
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