8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd.
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8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The butterflies he had tended as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him. Was it possible they actually remembered him?
Jo wrote a letter to an entomologist at Georgetown University, Dr. Martha Weiss. He asked if she could help him design an experiment, and she said yes.
Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis, yet the memory survived anyway. Then he bred them.
The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to lavender their grandmother had been taught to fear.
Jo presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.
A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/ten-old-butterfly-researcher-discovers-184204801.html
@dbattistella I swear that my bumblebees recognize me because the queens look me over every spring.
That's what they are doing when they fly around you in circles. They are looking. They are not aggressive
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8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The butterflies he had tended as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him. Was it possible they actually remembered him?
Jo wrote a letter to an entomologist at Georgetown University, Dr. Martha Weiss. He asked if she could help him design an experiment, and she said yes.
Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis, yet the memory survived anyway. Then he bred them.
The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to lavender their grandmother had been taught to fear.
Jo presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.
A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/ten-old-butterfly-researcher-discovers-184204801.html
Awesome, and now I have something totally cool to close my next Messaging Missive newsletter for my local Indivisible group with.
Thanks!
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8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The butterflies he had tended as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him. Was it possible they actually remembered him?
Jo wrote a letter to an entomologist at Georgetown University, Dr. Martha Weiss. He asked if she could help him design an experiment, and she said yes.
Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis, yet the memory survived anyway. Then he bred them.
The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to lavender their grandmother had been taught to fear.
Jo presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.
A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/ten-old-butterfly-researcher-discovers-184204801.html
@dbattistella I remember reading something similar about how fly larvae form memories that are not erased by the near complete reconstruction of their brains during metamorphosis too. I don't remember if anything was mentioned about memory inheritance though. I wonder how this compares to the flies & if they preserve their memories in the same way or if they do it in a different way.
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@dbattistella Bright youngster, that. Yes, I can affirm from years of rearing cats myself. They are scent-aware but in addition, when they become adults, they're color-pattern aware which is why I wear the same shirt and pants day in and day out, by which they do indeed recognize me...and without regular laundering, gives 'em another scent to identify me with, ha.
@claralistensprechen3rd @dbattistella
well, they are cats. that's normal. my cats recognised their mother after years of not seeing her.
here they are talking about butterflies which during metamorphosis have their brain melted and then rebuilt from scratch. and also the memory seems to pass down to the next generation, which is even more surprising.
I need to read the paper.
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@dbattistella I remember reading something similar about how fly larvae form memories that are not erased by the near complete reconstruction of their brains during metamorphosis too. I don't remember if anything was mentioned about memory inheritance though. I wonder how this compares to the flies & if they preserve their memories in the same way or if they do it in a different way.
Yes, they are two different phenomena (metamorphosis and reproduction). It's curious that they have both.
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@dbattistella amazing; this is what a genius looks like.
@iamnotU @dbattistella I think it’s what curiosity looks like.
Genius might be that, or something else, but it’s a daunting word! … and it’s funny how society values genius and pushes or literally beats children to have it, while it laughs at curiosity and seems to try to erase it from children.
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8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The butterflies he had tended as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him. Was it possible they actually remembered him?
Jo wrote a letter to an entomologist at Georgetown University, Dr. Martha Weiss. He asked if she could help him design an experiment, and she said yes.
Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis, yet the memory survived anyway. Then he bred them.
The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to lavender their grandmother had been taught to fear.
Jo presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.
A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/ten-old-butterfly-researcher-discovers-184204801.html
>When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him.
>Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent.
>The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender.
Jo, you know what to do next, raise a few caterpillars again, let evolution do their job and become BUTTERFLY MAN
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8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The butterflies he had tended as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him. Was it possible they actually remembered him?
Jo wrote a letter to an entomologist at Georgetown University, Dr. Martha Weiss. He asked if she could help him design an experiment, and she said yes.
Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis, yet the memory survived anyway. Then he bred them.
The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to lavender their grandmother had been taught to fear.
Jo presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.
A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/ten-old-butterfly-researcher-discovers-184204801.html
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@dbattistella Bright youngster, that. Yes, I can affirm from years of rearing cats myself. They are scent-aware but in addition, when they become adults, they're color-pattern aware which is why I wear the same shirt and pants day in and day out, by which they do indeed recognize me...and without regular laundering, gives 'em another scent to identify me with, ha.
@claralistensprechen3rd @dbattistella
One day at a zoo aquarium, i was suddenly followed by a large school of small fish. I walked back - still they followed me.
10 minutes later i saw why: the zoo-workers wore the same color blue t-shirts as i did that day, and were followed as well.
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8 yr old Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The butterflies he had tended as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. When he released them into the wild, they would fly right back to him. Was it possible they actually remembered him?
Jo wrote a letter to an entomologist at Georgetown University, Dr. Martha Weiss. He asked if she could help him design an experiment, and she said yes.
Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70% of them still avoided the scent. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis, yet the memory survived anyway. Then he bred them.
The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to lavender their grandmother had been taught to fear.
Jo presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.
A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/ten-old-butterfly-researcher-discovers-184204801.html
@dbattistella Just to clarify: the photo legend mentions keeping memory through metamorphosis, while the post body is about generational memory. Did the kid and professor prove both?
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J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
