Scientists Transplant Functional Eyes On the Tails of Tadpoles

New submitter physlord writes in with a story about tadpoles with eyes on their tails. "Using embryos from the African clawed frog (Xenopus), scientists at Tufts' Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology were able to transplant eye primordia—basically, the little nubs of flesh that will eventually grow into an eye—from one tadpole's head to another's posterior, flank, or tail....Amazingly, a statistically significant portion of the transplanted one-eyes could not only detect LED changes, but they showed learning behavior when confronted with electric shock."

Comments

Look up Waldemar Haffkine

[Medievalist]

Yeah, because we'd totally just try unproven experiments on ourselves without testing to see if it works and is safe. We may be that stupid, but the scientists aren't.

Testing on yourself is a time-honored tradition in both science and medicine.