Decapitated Worms Regrow Heads, Keep Old Memories

National Geographic, Carrie Arnold in Weird & Wild,  July 16, 2013

In French Revolution-style, researchers decapitated flatworms—then did something that would give even Madam Defarge the creeps.

The scientists let the worms’ heads grow back and found that their memories returned along with the new noggins, according to a new study in the Journal ofExperimental Biology.

Researchers decapitated a flatworm (left), and then allowed its head to regrow
(far right). Photograph courtesy Michael Levin and Tal Shomrat, Tufts University

Michael Levin and Tal Shomrat, biologists at Tufts University, have been studying how animals store and process information, whether it’s memories in the brain or the blueprint for developing organs in the body.

The team turned to flatworms because, despite their relative simplicity, they have many of the same organs and body organization as people: a brain and nervous system, bilateral symmetry, and even some of the same behaviors.

Flatworms “also have many of the same neurotransmitters as we do, and have been shown in older studies to remember complex tasks,” Levin said. (Read more about memory in National Geographic magazine.)

Yet unlike people, these worms have a remarkable ability to regenerate organs and body parts, including their brains—making them perfect research subjects.

In the Spotlight

Planarian flatworms are a hugely diverse array of small non-parasitic worms found in both freshwater and saltwater environments.

They have primitive eyes that can detect light, which they generally avoid—being in light makes them more obvious to predators.

To train the worms that lighted areas were safe and contained food, the researchers used a computerized device to continually track the worms’ behavior, providing rewards when a worm ventured into the bright spots and punishments when it remained in the dark.

“We used this device to get worms used to a dish with a peculiar laser-etched surface. When they remember this surface, they will rapidly approach a piece of liver to eat it, as opposed to spending much time circling around the dish to get the lay of the land,” Levin said.

Off With Their Heads

After the team verified that the worms had memorized where to find food, they chopped off the worms’ heads and let them regrow, which took two weeks.

Then the team showed the worms with the regrown heads where to find food, essentially a refresher course of their light training before decapitation.

Subsequent experiments showed that the worms remembered where the light spot was, that it was safe, and that food could be found there. The worms’ memories were just as accurate as those worms who had never lost their heads. (Test your memory with a National Geographic game.)

Memory Beyond the Brain

The obvious question remains: How can a worm remember things after losing its head?

“We have no idea,” Levin admitted. “What we do know is that memory can be stored outside the brain—presumably in other body cells—so that [memories] can get imprinted onto the new brain as it regenerates.”

Researchers have long confined their investigations of memory and learning to the brain, Levin said, but these results may encourage them to look elsewhere. (Read about a tadpole that can see through an eye implanted on its tail.)

“We’ve established a new model system in which our future work will be able to figure out how memories get encoded and decoded to and from living tissues.”

And given that we can’t regrow their heads, it’s unlikely that decapitation will ever become a serious memory aid for frantic students before exams.

Related Article:

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"..... DNA - A Quantum Force 

Now let me take you to the very small. Over a decade ago, Vladimir Poponin, a Russian scientist, used light in an experiment with one molecule of DNA. Through this experiment, he discovered a multidimensional field around DNA. Light patterned itself into a mathematical equation [sine wave] when DNA was present. He discovered that DNA had a quantum field. Not only that, it was a quantum field somehow filled with information. How else could the field pattern light into a sine wave? Now, this came from a quantum biologist, not Kryon. Yet there are many who doubt this experiment ever happened, since it shows something that no Human expected. There are those who simply don't wish to look at the fact that real quantum biologists did a real experiment! They chose to relegate all that information to the new age and not to science. It's always interesting what Humans do with science, isn't it? If it doesn't fit the 3D model of their reality, then they deny it exists.

When the full Human genome was transcribed, every single chemical in it was seen. The numbers are shocking, for in a molecule that is so small you cannot see it without an electron microscope, there are more than 3 billion chemicals! The double helix is more complex than you know. This molecule is small enough to be qualified to be in a quantum state, and Vladimir Poponin showed that it actually had a field around it, even a single DNA molecule.

Those who did the Human Genome Project wanted to know how the 3 billion chemicals of DNA create more than 26,000 genes of the Human body. By the way, there are more genes than that, but I'm using the scientists' numbers, not mine. So this is what they were interested in. They did not see DNA in a quantum state. They were not looking for that, even though the very science of DNA shouts with logic that it has to be quantum. They weren't looking for that. Instead, they counted chemicals and looked for codes, and they found them in a very odd arrangement.

They discovered that of the 3 billion chemicals in the DNA double helix, all the genes were being created in the protein-encoded parts of DNA. Three and a half percent of DNA was creating all the genes. More than 90% of the chemical makeup of DNA seemed to be random. It did absolutely nothing - that they could see or understand. Even to this day, science does not see the obvious, that the 90% is quantum and the 3.5% is linear.

Today, your quantum physicists are often dealing with ten dimensions plus time (11 dimensions) in the most popular kind of multi-dimensional physics, string theory. If you began to ask them about what this all looks like, they would say the words, "chaos" and "random patterning." For this is the way that quantum fields work. They are filled with potentials instead of absolutes, and they vary depending on many factors... including Human consciousness. Someday there will be the realization there is a strong possibility that DNA, although a biological molecule, is in a quantum state. This will break the rules of "size" in a quantum state. For it actually is "mostly quantum," and even affects the spin of the atoms that enter its field. Then the next obvious question will occur: "What information is in the ninety percent of DNA that is quantum?"

Now we get to the core truth, don't we? So I will tell you. The ninety percent of DNA which is quantum, is filled with information, both esoteric and timeless. It is a quantum blueprint for everything you are and have been since you arrived on the planet the first time. DNA contains instruction sets for your life; everything from your full Akashic Record - every single lifetime you have had - to the benevolent creator's fingerprint within the seeds of creation itself. Every single talent you ever had is there, even if you don't have any of those today... the record is there. Every predisposition of weakness and strength are there. Biologically, every single instruction to every single stem cell is there.

Did you ever wonder where stem cells get their "information" to make the Human Being? It's in the 90% of your DNA, and it's all quantum. Why do some quantum DNA contain instructions to create weaker bodies? Why is it that some predispositions for disease are there? Now I'm giving you this information so that you will understand something that is coming next... perhaps the most important biological attribute ever presented.

DNA is a Dynamic Molecule, not a static one.

Humanity is stuck in the 3D portion of their biological thinking. In your 3-D life, you simply accept the chemistry you're given. You act as though the three percent gene producing part is all there is. You believe it is a chemical protocol that is unchangeable and simply "you." You don't see it for the way it's designed. It's dynamic and always has been. It's not set, but will continue to simply repeat what it does unless there is another quantum influence on it.

Therefore you live with the 3 percent as though it were all there is, and since it just "came with your body" and seems to control everything, you never talk to it. Many of you come in with pre-dispositions based upon the karma which is put upon you from your past lives. You don't come in clean [without karmic energy]. Instead, you arrive with pre-dispositions, fears and phobias. Some are positive. Perhaps you come in as a prodigy continuing your last life... the 8-year-old who can paint like a master and do brushstrokes that take 30 years to develop. What does that tell you about what must be in the DNA?

Perhaps you come in as the composer, the pianist, the prodigy, the violinist, just waiting until your hands can go on the fingerboard or can reach up and fret the notes. Perhaps you come in knowing how to play the piano, just waiting for your hands to get big enough to do what you used to do... without any lessons. How do you explain that, dear ones? The answer is that all this is contained in the dynamic quantum instruction sets of your DNA... the part you never talk to it.

Cell Division - a static process?

Let me take you to the cellular division process. We've said this before, but you need to hear this to understand how it works. A cell is ready to divide. The Human body is designed to rejuvenate... all tissue. You've been told that there's some tissue that does not rejuvenate, but that is incorrect. It all rejuvenates at different speeds at different times and in different ways. It rejuvenates. So now you know that the Human body is designed to live a long time. Unfortunately, the energy that you have created on this planet and what you've gone through, has beat it up. You don't live much more than 80 years. That was not the design.

The Biblical personalities were sometimes prophets and sometimes masters and sometimes just there... and lived for hundreds of years. Did they really? Or perhaps this is that just a metaphor? Did they get that right in the Bible without a error in transcription? I'm going to tell you the truth. It's very accurate. Thousands of years ago you lived a very long time, Lemurian. If you knew your lifespan, you'd gasp. But not anymore. Instructions have been given over time to DNA, literally, by the energy of the planet... en energy that you have created through consciousness.

A cell divides. Right before it divides, it needs the blueprint to clone itself. The blueprint is available from the stem cell. The stem cell gets its information from the quantum part of the DNA, which has never changed since you were born. It's remained static, since nothing has ever changed it... and the fact that you don't believe it's changeable and have just accepted aging. There's not a conscious effort to do anything with it, and it just lays there like it always did.

The diving cell "talks" to the stem cell and says, "Do the same thing you always did? Change anything?" And the stem cell talks to the cell that is dividing, saying, "Make another one just the same." Then you rejuvenate just like the last one, accepting everything you received when you were born..."