What's going on inside?

By Rhiannonw

Mon, 20 Nov 2023
  • 587 reads
8 comments
 

A fruit fly’s larva has a brain very small
but is it simple? not at all!
3000 neurons,
more than 500,000
connecting synapse gaps:
which have been plotted,
as a ‘map’ called a connectome –
all in a little brain smaller than
a poppy seed!

 

Certificate U
Poem
Grand Designs
Nature

Comments

Submitted by Di_Hard on

That's a question I am always asking! Really like the first two lines :0) And "synapse gaps" with map. I remember being very surprised how much DNA we share with fruit flies, but the word connectome is new to me. And your illustration is very, um, to the point :0)

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

I didn't have a picture of a fruit fly larva, and thought, just make the point about roughly how small the brain is, - a poppy seed is just under one millimeter I gather. The way that the DNA is 'read' in our cells is being realised to be more and more complex than had been realised, as is the realisation that there is not a pile of 'junk DNA' in our cells, nor in the brains of fruit flies! Rhainnon

 

Submitted by Turlough on

It's wonderful how you have written so many interesting facts about the fruit fly and its brain into a poem.

From now on, whenever I look at a fruit fly I'm sure I'll feel inadequate.

It's educational and enjoyable Rhiannon.

Turlough

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thank you! I guess we can extrapolate it to the complexity of any living thing, big or small! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by marandina on

"...3000 neurons,
more than 500,000
connecting synapse gaps"

Amazing facts. I think fruit flies are the one scientists use in experiments. An eye-opener of a poem and adriotly done, of course, Rhiannon. Paul

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

thank you, Paul. It does illustrate life's biochemical complexity doesn't it, so well. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Tom Brown on

Hello Rhiannon! Somehow I found this all very interesting given your "creationalist" convictions. Also Di's comment, it is fascinating how complex a fruitfly's DNA is as compared to much more "avanced" life forms.

Keep well! Tom

 

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Hi,Tom, I thought this verse illustrated a little the fact that as more and more complexity is discovered in the organization of activity in the cell and organs, it becomes more and more impossible to see how such pathways could have formed by chance, nor is there the discovery of intermediate forms that had been hoped for. All creatures are created by the same designer, so there are similarities of structure and design, but the actual amounts of differences in the DNA (not just %) even between us and apes is tremendous in amount and structural differences. One would need so many coincident 'changes' to make a viable structural change.

There has been much research on how 'DNA is read :
[Research has found the DNA
is far more complex, than was thought,
so many ways are known today
of reading off the information –
backwards, forwards, dicing, slicing,
recombining, cutting, pasting,
starting here, then starting there,
switching on and off as needed,
all precisely timed, directed
– multiple instructions coded
in one section, guiding, using
nano-molecule machines,
organized and synchronized

https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/mystery-chrysalis]

regards, Rhiannon