The irruption of carnivorous maggots in Florida

A recent news in Florida brought a big terror to people and shock to scientists. The worst kind of flies (maggots) is now back from the annihilation project which was thought to be completed in 50 years ago. These maggots are super harmful to humans since they eat any livestock, pets, and even humans alive! When an alive animal is laid eggs by adult fly, maggots born from the egg enter into flesh from the wound and start to eat all alive tissues of the animal. This maggots are also called "screwworms" because they have screw-like body and spin to dig into animal skin. This specie was thought to be annihilated by the mass release of radioactively castrated male flies about 50 years ago. Recently however, many dead bodies of wild deer eaten by this maggots have found in Florida. This specie can cause extreme damage to human society, so scientists are rushing to castrate, or genetically annihilate them again.

Planaria

Humans have always sought for eternal life as I wrote in previous post, and that often includes the ability to regenerate own body parts like arms and organs. That is of course impossible for humans and it is also denied for advanced animals. However, humans again found an animal that can regenerate any parts of its body in short time. The animal is called planaria, a group of flat worms. It has head with brain, stomach, and tail. It's very rare in animal world to possess an ability to regenerate such a complicated organ like brain. Its largest mystery is that when planaria is cut into many pieces, all of the pieces can identify the correct direction and repair. There is one story that a researcher cut planaria into 107 pieces and all of them were completely repaired and became 107 planarias. Its special cells are always ready to differentiate to any kinds of cells so many studies are taking place to somehow use this cell to repair human organ or body parts. The recent discovery of iPS cell is closely related to the study of planaria. Scientists are now trying to create artificial heart by using this cell.

uncanny valley

This week, I would like to explain about an interesting word, "uncanny valley". This word was suggested by a Japanese robot engineering professor, Mori. When a humanoid robot is created with more reality in emotion and movement, we likely to have a positive impression to it, however, in some stage, our impression dramatically fall suddenly. But when more reality is added, our likability increases a lot. This curve, when drew in graph, is called the "uncanny valley". There are many discussions made to explain the relationships between CG animation movie and its box-office revenue. When the reality of the movie is on the bottom of uncanny valley, the revenue tend to become much lower compared to non-real movie or very real movie. Many robotics and CG technicians are seeking for a way to get over the uncanny valley.