My latest cameo

I make an appearance at the start of the 18 May edition of Dr. Karl’s weekly call in show on Triple J. Sort of.

In the previous week’s show (12 May), a caller asked if insects had pain receptors. Karl said he expected that they did, but he didn’t know any peer-reviewed papers on the subject.

As soon as I heard that on my iPod, I hopped on to Twitter and sent Karl the link to this paper:

Tracey WD, Jr., Wilson RI, Laurent G, Benzer S. 2003. painless, a Drosophila gene essential for nociception. Cell 113: 261-273. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0092-8674(03)00272-1

Karl was kind enough to mention this at the start of the show. Another crisis averted!

Here’s a direct link to the mp3 of the “answer” podcast; my thing is literally the first. The “question” show is here.