Happy Halloween! ‘Tis the season to be spooky you know—the season of mad scientists in laboratories creating monsters with human brains and all that. So keeping in the spirit of things, we’ve got a post today about something quite ghoulish. A three-eyed monster straight from the science lab! Hmmm, not buying it eh? Okay, would you believe a three-eyed tadpole then? Good, because that’s what the blog is about today. That, and more.

So where do we go to find this frightening beast? We’re off to a neuroscience lab in Warwick England. (Hmm, that name sort of conjures up images of warlocks and such doesn’t it?) Scientists here have discovered the “switch” that develops eyes in frogs. The code for making different body parts (and everything else in an organism) is found in genes, which store DNA, the hereditary material of all organisms. The problem is that scientists don’t always know how to switch these genes on so they start working. When the scientists in Warwick, England discovered the switch (it’s a special molecule) for eye development, they were able to create eyes in tadpoles. Some of the tadpoles had three eyes in their head; others had an eye on their stomach or tail! It all depended on where scientists switched on the eye-making gene.

How is this possible? The entire genetic code for making every single part of an organism is found in each and every cell. This means the genes for making your foot aren’t just found in your foot, they are also found in your brain, your nose, and even your little finger! The Warwick scientists believe that they are just a step away from being able to develop new body parts or parts of body parts in the lab. Wow. That would mean that one day, if you lost an eye, you might be able to have a new one grown for you, fresh from the petri-dish! Spooky!