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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

It's not quite the Esquilax of flatworms, but it's way more interesting. A team of biologists at Tufts University have induced one species of flatworm to grow the head and brain of another species of flatworm [cnet.com], without tampering with the genomic sequence. Instead, they manipulated electrical synapses in the worm's body.

The research shows that large-scale anatomy is not hard-wired in the genome, but can also be affected by physiological circuits outside the genes (at least in flatworms). It has been published this week in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

"It is commonly thought that the sequence and structure of chromatin -- material that makes up chromosomes -- determine the shape of an organism, but these results show that the function of physiological networks can override the species-specific default anatomy," said senior and corresponding author Michael Levin.

What would your favorite Frankenstein creation be?

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