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EPISODE 28: Colour Coded – How Blind Worms See Danger in Blue 2025-09-10 Dipon Ghosh – guest , Dongyeop Lee – guest , H. Robert Horvitz – guest , Michael N. Nitabach – guest , Xin Jin – guest , Veeren Chauhan – host 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 📧 [email protected] AI/ML	WOrM Podcast: Whole Organism Analytics Podcast Listen

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 📧 [email protected]

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