How Scientists Engineered A See-through Squid with its Brain in Plain View | WBUR

This story aired throughout the country on NPR's "All Things Considered."

Becoming invisible usually requires magic.

For some thumb-sized squid, though, all it takes is a little genetic tweaking.

Once these squid are genetically altered, "they're really hard to spot," even for their caretakers, says Joshua Rosenthal, a senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

"We know we put it in this aquarium, but they might look for a half hour before they can actually see it," Rosenthal says. "They're that transparent."

The see-through squid are offering scientists a new way to study the biology of a creature that is intact and moving freely.

"It changes the way you interpret what's going on in this animal," says Caroline Albertin, a fellow at the lab. "You can look through and see their three hearts beating, you can see their brain."

The transparent squid is a genetically altered version of the hummingbird bobtail squid, a species usually found in the tropical waters from Indonesia to China and Japan. It's typically smaller than a thumb and shaped like a dumpling. And like other cephalopods, it has a relatively large and sophisticated brain. Read the full story on WBUR.

Source: How Scientists Engineered A See-through Squid with its Brain in Plain View | WBUR