WHETHER you are looking for food or fleeing a predator, the same kind of gene controls whether you stay or go.
Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University in New York City and colleagues studied nematode worms (Caenorhabditis elegans) to find out how they decide whether to leave a dwindling food source. The gene tyra-3 helps control the decision. It codes for a neurotransmitter receptor related to the one for adrenalin, which controls the "fight or flight" response (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09821).
The study suggests that the genes have conserved their function throughout animal evolution, Bargmann says. "This is an ancient vocabulary," she says.