{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1167",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1167,
    "subject": "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna....",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-10-13T17:56:18+00:00",
    "last": "1998-10-13T17:56:18+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0019-0104@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Charles Dye",
        "address": "raster at highfiber.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-13T17:56:18+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna....",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The Spectacled Bear in RNA World:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I do know what Kieran meant about RNA, though: there was a theory\naround for a while that RNA was the carrier of memory. Back in the\n1970's (ish) someone taught planarian worms to run a T-shaped maze,\nthen fed them to other planarian worms, and put those worms into\nthe maze. They appeared to guess which way to turn more often than\nchance would allow. There naturally followed a lot of stories based\non that, often making much of the cannibal belief that you could\nabsorb your enemies' strength and other virtues by eating them. This\naccount is taken from what I recall of the introduction to one such\nstory, so it may not be scientifically or historically accurate, but\nit reflects the author's understanding, which is what matters here.\nThe experiment seemed to suggest that memory must be carried chemically\n(cell structures wouldn't survive being ground up and eaten) and RNA\nwas a favorite contender for the role. I believe the theory has gone\naway now, though."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've heard about this too.  In the original experiment, the second\nset of worms did a far better job of solving the maze than the first\ngroup.  However, it turns out that if you *wash* the maze between the\nfirst and second sets of worms, the second group does no better than\nthe first -- whether they eat their predecessors or no.  So yes, that\ntheory \"has gone away.\"\n\nraster at highfiber.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}