Exploradio – The sea cucumber and the brain
WKSU: Researchers are developing a better way to communicate with the human brain by studying how sea cucumbers defend themselves. Specifically, one feature is it stiffens its outer layer through a change in the chemistry of its skin, “… and that’s the mechanism that we’re really trying to play on,” said Dustin Tyler, professor of biomedical engineering. “The other is that it spits out its internal organs and becomes toxic. We’re not trying to replicate that.”