Thursday 5 December 2013
This
month, we leave backbones behind, for an invertebrate and protist special. I speak
to Chris Reid from the the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, USA, about an ancient
single cell animal that looks like a glob of luminous yellow gunge, that doesn't
have a brain but may be smarter than human beings. I find out about a double
deception in the animal kingdom: how an ant-mimicking spider sends misleading
visual and chemical cues to different predators. And, in the scientific spark I
ask Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor
of genetics at University College London what made him want to be a scientist, and how he came to be
one of the world’s experts on snail genetics
Download the MP3
An ant-mimicking spider Peckhamia image courtesy of Continis
Quicklinks:
Chris Reid's webpage
Divya Uma's paper on ant-mimicry
Steve Jones' column in the Telegraph
