A team of biologists has begun re‑running the 1960s experiment that claimed flatworms could inherit learned behavior simply by eating each other. The original work sparked headlines because it suggested memory could b…

In the 1960s, researchers reported that planarian worms shared a learned response after one worm ate another that had been trained to avoid light.[^1][^2][^3][^5][^4] The claim rested on a handful of behavioral assays…

The failure matters because it cuts a shortcut that some theorists have used to argue for non‑synaptic memory storage. If a worm cannot retain a habit after cannibalism, the argument that memory lives in a soluble fac…

The 1960s study relied on a small sample of worms and a binary light‑avoidance test.[^2][^3] Modern standards demand larger cohorts, automated tracking, and statistical rigor.[^6] When the new researchers applied vide…