To Discover Irreducibly Complex Mechanisms, Biologists Reverse Engineer a Worm

My master's degree research focused on paleomagnetism and I've always been fascinated by the earth's magnetic field. So naturally I was interested in new research by biologists at the University of Texas, Austin, published in the journal eLife, "Magnetosensitive neurons mediate geomagnetic orientation in Caenorhabditis elegans." They explored how the nematode worm C. elegans (a favorite model organism for research) orients itself to the earth's magnetic field.

Many organisms have such an in...