What happens if you stick some eyes on the tail of a tadpole?

Since the dawn of time man has sat and pondered the universe, questions have come to us like, whats the meaning of life? Why are we here? Who created us? and, probably most importantly... What happens if you stick some eyes on the tail of a tadpole? Well, Finally, after centuries of wondering we have an answer to this question.

The phrase "eyes in the back of your head" is given new meaning after the discovery that transplanted eyes in tadpoles are actually capable of distinguishing different colours of light.

Recent research has produced tadpoles with these ectopic eyes on their tails that, whilst in an unusual location and not being directly connected to the brain are capable of processing visual information from their environment.

Tadpoles have had a pretty hard time of it over the years, as if life weren't hard enough for them as it is, these experiments have put them through even more hardship. This is because, in these experiments, the tadpoles eyes were removed, with cells that would develop into eyes being transplanted into their tails. The tadpoles were then placed into chambers where half of the chamber was illuminated in blue light, and the other half in red light. Every time the tadpoles were in one half of the chamber they were shocked with electricity. This eventually lead to the tadpoles associating one particular colour with the shock, and avoiding that colour, proving that these transplanted eyes were capable of processing light information from their environment.

With a lot of experiments you could ask, 'well what was the point?'. Well in this case this data could prove important when treating certain cases of blindness, or even one day in the development of artificial eyes.

What do you think of this new piece of research? Was it pointless? Or is this actually the next step in the path of producing a bionic human? Comment below with your opinion, or email newsinscience@gmail.com with any questions.