WOrM Podcast: Whole Organism Analytics Podcast10 Syys 2025

EPISODE 28: Colour Coded – How Blind Worms See Danger in Blue

Worms without eyes shouldn’t see colour — yet C. elegans can. In this episode, we dive into a landmark study that shows how worms use blue-to-amber light ratios to make foraging decisions. When exposed to toxic blue pigments like pyocyanin, worms avoid them — but only under white light. The twist? They do it all without opsins.

We explore:

How worms detect and avoid blue-pigment-secreting P. aeruginosa
Why light potentiates avoidance, but only for certain spectral ratios
How lite-1 and GUR-3 receptors mediate spectral sensitivity
Natural variation in colour preference across wild strains
The discovery that stress-related genes jkk-1 and lec-3 underlie colour-guided behaviour

This episode uncovers a new form of opsin-free colour vision, expanding our understanding of how simple organisms read complex environments.

📖 Based on the research article:

“C. elegans discriminates colors to guide foraging”

Dipon Ghosh, Dongyeop Lee, Xin Jin, H. Robert Horvitz & Michael N. Nitabach

Published in Science (2021)

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd3010

🎧 Subscribe to the WOrM Podcast for more full-organism surprises in perception, evolution, and behaviour.

This podcast is generated with artificial intelligence and curated by Veeren. If you’d like your publication featured on the show, please get in touch.

📩 More info:

🔗 ⁠⁠www.veerenchauhan.com⁠⁠

📧 veeren.chauhan@nottingham.ac.uk

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Jaksot(53)

EPISODE 53: Worms on Pause

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱⏸️Today, we are talking about worms that appear to stop living—without dying.Researchers have identified a new, reversible state of suspended animatio...

5 Elo 26min

EPISODE 52: Worms in Space: Microbiomes in a Capsule

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱🚀Today, we are looking at NemaCapsules: a new microfluidic system designed to study how host genetics and the gut microbiome influence C. elegans hea...

29 Heinä 21min

EPISODE 51: The Worm Behind the Wild

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re looking at a review with a bold idea.Can a tiny nematode help us protect fish, amphibians, reptiles and insects from an increasingly chall...

22 Heinä 16min

EPISODE 50: Fed by Mum, Built by Ribosomes

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re talking about inheritance.Not DNA.Not small RNAs.Not epigenetics.But ribosomes.⸻🧬 The central ideaWhen mother worms experience dietary re...

15 Heinä 20min

EPISODE 49: Glowing up the Worm Proteome

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re looking at a paper that doesn’t answer a biological question.Instead, it builds the tools to answer thousands of biological questions in t...

8 Heinä 21min

EPISODE 48: Murder Mode: How a Worm Evolved the Urge to Kill

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we're talking about a worm with teeth.And a nervous system that has been rewired — by evolution — to become aggressive.⸻🧬 The central ideaPrist...

6 Touko 14min

EPISODE 47: When Bacteria Fight Back: Bioplastic Kills the Worm

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re talking about something unexpected.A bioplastic — something we usually think of as sustainable, useful, even beneficial —can kill a worm.⸻...

29 Huhti 21min

EPISODE 46: Turning in Time: Neural Sequences in the Worm Brain

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re looking at something deceptively simple: a turn.But not just that a worm turns —how the brain decides to do it.⸻🧬 The central ideaTurning...

22 Huhti 19min