Dear friends this new is from the science in the NY Times :
-- snipped --
Closer to home, a spider expert in Costa
Rica has discovered a remarkable wasp
whose larva is able to reprogram a spider's
brain and make it spin a special web for the
larva's benefit. The wasp lays its egg on the
spider's abdomen and the larva, when it
hatches, pierces small holes in the spider's
side and drinks the juices. The night the
larva is ready to pupate it kills the spider but
before doing so it injects a chemical that
has a very strange effect on the spider's web-weaving.
Instead of its usual circular web, the spider spins a strong
platform where
the larva spins its own cocoon. The platform web is
constructed by a
modified subroutine used in bulding the normal web. Anyone who
understood how the wasp larva pulled this trick would know a
great deal
about how a spider's brain is organized. .......(snipped)
---------
Well after that, I am tempted to suggest that the neurologists do learn
the trick of the wasp in reprograming brains so they could also
reprogram the PWPD's brains in order to increase the production of
dopamine ...... ;-)
Cheers ,
Joao Paulo - Salvador,BA,Brazil
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