Confessions of a Scientific Humorist

by James V. McConnell

For several months we tried to do just that, but we failed, simply because we were rather stupid about it all. Our hypodermic needles were far too large and we tried to inject far too much material. The poor little worms swelled up like balloons; a few popped. Eventually, though; a brainstorm hit us. Hungry planarians are cannibalistic. If we couldn’t make the transfer using our crude injection techniques, perhaps we could induce the worms to do the work for us.
So, in our next experiment, we trained a group of victim worms and then chopped them in pieces and fed them to an unsuspecting group of hungry cannibals. After the cannibals had had a chance to digest their meal, we promptly gave them the same sort of training we had given the victims. To our delight, the cannibals that had eaten educated victims did significantly better (right from the very first trial) than did cannibals that had eaten untrained victims. We had achieved the first inter-animal, transfer of information or, as I like to put it, we had confirmed the Mau Mau hypothesis!
After we had repeated this experiment successfully several times, we went on to show that the chemical involved in the transfer was RNA,
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule that is essential for most biological functions, either by performing the function itself or by forming a template for production of proteins.
 
 
 
 
  a giant molecule found in almost all living cells. For we showed that we could achieve this type of memory transfer using a crude extract of RNA taken from the bodies of trained planarians and injected into untrained worms (using, I may say, a very, very small needle.)
In recent years, a considerable controversy has cropped up concerning a whole series of similar experiments using rats and mice as subjects rather than worms. And, despite the outcries of the orthodox, it does now seem as if chemicals extracted from the brains of trained rats and injected into their untrained brethren does cause much the same sort of memory transfer as we had originally discovered in flatworms.
But I stray from the point. We published our original regeneration results in 1959 and at once found ourselves mentioned in several national publications. Of course, none of the journalists took our work at all seriously but, unfortunately for us, there were hundreds of high-school students around the country who did. The United States had just embarked on an orgy of educational self-improvement, part of which was the creation of science fairs for younger students. Once a year these youngsters were encouraged to undertake an independent scientific project of some consequence, and to enter their results at an annual contest in their locality. Well-meaning judges selected winners (more on the basis artistic presentation than true scientific merit I fear.) Local winners competed against each other at regional events, and finally at a national meeting the best of the country vied for top honours.
Now, the trouble with a high-school student’s undertaking his own research project (no matter how Papa and Mama help him out) is that he has little equipment or space to work with. A student might wish to do a very interesting study involving the training of rats, but where are the animals to be kept and how would they be paid for? The brighter students, realizing this limitation from the start, were on the lookout for simple but interesting experiments, and many of them working in the biological sciences saw immediately that the worm could make an intriguing and most inexpensive substitute for the rat. So in 1959 we were inundated with letters from these bright youngsters asking us to tell them all about the care and training of worms (A few more aggressive souls wrote us demanding that we send them a few hundred trained animals at once, because they needed them instantly and didn’t have time to mess around doing the work themselves.)
I answered the first few letters personally at great length, but when several hundred arrived, it became clear that some more efficient means of communication would have to be arrived at. So my students and I sat down and wrote what was really a manual describing h ow to repeat the sorts of experiments we had been working on. It took us all of fourteen pages to pour out our complete knowledge of planarianology. We typed the material up and reproduced it on ditto paper (using purple ink guaranteed to fade rapidly so that years later we wouldn’t be embarrassed by residual displays of our youthful ignorance.)
Now, I had always been noted for the oddness of my sense of humour, and the planarian research greatly enhanced this reputation. Thus none of my students considered it strange that we should try to make a? joke out of this little manual, so joke it became. First of all, it had to have a name. In psychological jargon, a person who trains rats is called a rat runner, because, presumably, his task is to get the rats to run through a maze or some other piece of apparatus. A man who trains insects is a bug runner, and someone who works with humans is, quite seriously, called a people runner.

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WORM RUNNER’S DIGEST
TABLE OF CONTENT

Продолжение Назад

16. Joseph W. Bastien. Apologies to the Iroquois, Edmund Wilson.
17. Roland Dougherty. Selected Papers of David Wechsler, Allen J. Edwards.
18. William G. Mims. Sensory Saltation: Metastability in the Perceptual World, Frank A. Geldard.
19. Sam Kalill. Essays in Freudian Psychoanalysis, Samuel Kahn.
20. Margaret M. McDonald. Sight & Mind: An Introduction to Perception, Lloyd Kaufman.
21. Camelia Hahn Bishop. Culture & Personality: Contemporary Reading, Robert A. LeVine (Ed.)
22. J. D. S. Private Money & Public Service: The Role of Foundations in American Society, Merrimon Cuninggim; Re Reviewer & Reviewed.
23. Kathye R. Wallace. Forthcoming Reviews, Books Available for Review, Journals Available for Review.

Volume 18 Issue 2
Published Dec 1, 1976

1. James V. McConnell. Worms & Things.
2. Robert Boise. Animalizing.
3. Kathryn Kuyk, Joseph Dazey, & J. Erwin. Primiparous & Multiparouse Pigtail Monkey Mothers (Macaca nemestrina): Restraint & Retrieval of Female Infants.
4. Kathryn Kuyk, Joseph Dazey, & J. Erwin. Play Patterns of Pigtail Monkey Infants: Effect of Age & Peer Presence.
5. Stuart E. Nixon. Intermediary Metabolism of the Planarian Polycelis coronata: Activity of Some Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle Enzymes.
6. J. H. Bauer & John Hrycak. Cooperation of Laboratory Rats in Response to a Snake (Constrictor constrictor.)
7. George L. Blau & Wilson J. Walthall, Jr. Conditioning in Mimosa pudica.
8. M. Aaron Roy. Early Rearing in Infrahuman Primates with Reduced Conspecific Contacts: A Selected Bibliography, Part I.
9. Martha C. Knack. Genetic & Social Structure: Mathematical Structuralism in Population Genetic & Social Theory, Paul Ballonoff (Ed.)
10. J. A. Winer. The Use of Axonal Transport for Studies of Neuronal Connectivity, W. M. Cowan & M. Guenod (Eds.)
11. Joel Greenspoon. Progress in Behavior Modification, Volume 2, M. Herson, R. M. Eisler & P. M. Miller (Eds.)
12. Robert N. Rothstein. Zen & the Comic Spirit, M. Conrad Hyers.

Volume 19 Issue 1
Published Jul 1, 1977

1. James V. McConnell. Worms & Things.
2. B. E. Miller & G. L. Holt. Memory Transfer in Rats by Injection of Brain & Liver RNA.
3. Charles C. Cleland, Jan Case, & Lee Ford. Multiple Births & Pathology: A Territorial Perspective.
4. David V. Forrest & James H, Ryan. The National Enquirer TV Poll,
5. M. Aaron Roy. Early Rearing of Infrahuman Primates with Reduced Conspecific Contacts: A Selected Bibliography. Part II.
6. Peter R. Runkel. Galileo Never Had It So Good.
7. Richard L. Seltzer. A New Dawn for a Fossil Carrion Worm & an Embryonal Cephalopod, Both 400,000,000 Years Old.
8. Jon D. Swartz. Book Review. (Ed.)
9. James N. Olson. Studies in the Cognitive Basis of Language Development, Harry Beilin.
10. Dennis R. Brightwell. The Biochemical Basis of Neuropharmacology, Jack R. Cooper, Floyd E. Bloom, & Robert H. Roth.
11. Joe Erwin. Animal Population Ecology, J. P. Dempster.
12. Joel Greenspoon. The Genetic of Behavior, L. Erhman & P. A. Parsons.
13. R. J. Katz. Hormonal Correlates of Behavior. Vol. 1: A Lifespan View; Hormonal Correlates of Behavior. Vol. 2: An Organismic View, B. E. Eleftheriou & R. L. Sprott (Eds.)
14. Clark Johnson. Current & Future Trends in Community Psychology, Stuart E. Golann & Jeffrey Baker (Eds.)
15. Gerald N. Weiskott & Marsha Buckalew. Communicative Behavior & Evolution, Martin E. Hahn & Edward C. Simmer (Eds.)
16. Mark Lafer. Perinatal Addiction, Raymond D. Harbison (Ed.)
17. Dianne S. Peters. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, Phyllis A. Katz (Ed.)
18. Martha C. Knack. Nonhuman Primates in Biomedical Research, William Montagna.
19. H.-G. Tittmar. The Developmental Neuropsychology of Sensory Deprivation, Austin H. Riesen (Ed.)
20. Jack Demarest. Animal Models in Human Psychology, George Serban & Arthur Kling (Eds.)
21. Joel Greenspoon. Issues in Brain/Behavior Control, W. Lynn Smith & Arthur Kling (Eds.)
22. Jeffery A. Winer. Atlas of an Insect Brain, N. J. Strausfeld.
23. Charles C. Cleland. Consent HandBook, H. Rutherford Turnbull, III (Ed.)
24. Jon D. Swartz. Those Who Made It! A Look at Psychologists & Their Works; A Guide to Psychologists & Their Concepts, V. J. Nordby & Calvin S. Hall; Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology, Robert V. Guthrie; The Making of Psychology: Discussions with Creative Contributors, Richard I. Evans (Ed.); Psychological Research: The Inside Story, Michael H. Siegel & H. Philip Zeigler (Eds.)
25. J. D. S. Re Reviewer & Reviewed; Guide for Preparing A Book Review for The Journal of Biologigal Psychology.
26. ynthia Jones Gardner. Forthcoming Reviews, Books Available for Review.