Jo Nagai was raising swallowtail butterflies at his home in Kobe, Japan, when he noticed something odd. The ones he had looked after as caterpillars seemed to recognize him. Wild butterflies fled. His didn't.
He was in second grade. He wrote a four-page letter to Dr. Martha Weiss, an entomologist at Georgetown University who had studied whether moths could retain memories through metamorphosis. He asked if she could help him design a version of her experiment for butterflies.
She said yes.
Using a muscle therapy device, Jo trained caterpillars to associate the scent of lavender with a mild vibration. When the caterpillars became butterflies, 70 per cent of them still avoided the lavender. Their brains had been completely rebuilt during metamorphosis. The memory survived anyway.
Then he bred them.
The offspring, which had never been trained, also avoided lavender. So did their grandchildren. Without ever experiencing the vibration, two generations of butterflies inherited an aversion to a scent their grandmother had been taught to fear.
Jo documented it all in a 33-page research paper and presented his findings at the International Congress of Entomology in Kobe in 2024. He was 10.
A second grader wrote a letter to a Georgetown professor, and together they found evidence that butterflies can pass memories down through generations.
-Wilderness Whisper
Un but de plus pour Kylian Mbappé. Contre le racisme cette fois. Tout mon soutien. Quand les mots salissent, nos valeurs répondent : dignité, respect, fraternité. @KMbappe 👏
Así somos los venezolanos…
Vean esto, la gente llevando insumos en motos y carros camino a Vargas.
Es la hora de servir y organizarnos. Unidos, más que nunca.
Tayvan’da cep telefonunu tamir ettiren güzel bir kız, telefonu teslim aldıktan sonra erkek arkadaşına selam vermek için dışarı çıktı.
Ancak durumdan şüphelenen dükkan sahibi, kadını motosiklete binip kaçmak isterken yakaladı!
Adamdan özür dileyen ve affetmesi için yalvaran kadın, adamı polisleri çağırmadan bu işi halletmeleri için ikna etmeye çalıştı.
@_ilestlor Merci à elle de combattre dans cette bataille des mots et des symboles.
Merci pour sa clarté et la justesse de ses propos.
"La politique n'est pas là pour alimenter les conflits mais pour les résoudre ".
Une Mentsch !
📣 A écouter !
La réponse magistrale de Catherine Trautmann à une conseillère LFI qui l’interpellait avec du « génocide » tous les 2 mots :
10 minutes d’un plaidoyer implacable sur le dialogue de Strasbourg avec Israël, l’instrumentalisation LFI et ses discours antisémites 👏⤵️