Refreshments are served at 3:30 p.m. in Physics room 242
http://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/samuel.html
The nematode C. elegans is engineered to inhabit diverse mechanical environments. The worm swims in fluids, crawls on surfaces, or burrows through solids as it constantly searches for bacterial food. I will discuss how two biomechanical problems - feeding and moving - are solved by rhythmic biological machines inside the worm. Using high-speed videography, we show how the worm’s pharynx is engineered to filter food of the specific size that corresponds to its bacterial prey. By studying their locomotory movements in environments with defined viscosity, we show how the worm's motor circuits adapt the locomotory gait to the mechanical surroundings. Given the simplicity of the C. elegans nervous system and anatomy, combined with powerful methods to manipulate the animal at the genetic and cellular levels, we aim at a comprehensive understanding of these biological machines in the worm down to the detailed workings of small networks of neurons and muscle.
