4.
(16 pts) I keep a Venus Fly Trap on the kitchen window sill at home to eliminate
cluster flies. When a fly bends two
or more sensory "hairs" on the inside surface of the trap, or the
same hair two or more times in quick succession, the trap closes fairly rapidly
and finis to the fly! The inside surface
of these traps is moistened with a fluid low in Na+, K+
and Cl-, and the sensory hairs consist of a complex tissue column
of cells. Stuart Jaconson (1965) measured the plasma
membrane potential of these hair cells and found that when bent they exhibited
small, but prolonged, changes in membrane potential, as exhibited below in
two representative traces.

A.
(10 points) Ignoring the shape variations
explain as concretely as you can how
these changes in membrane potential are likely
generated.
B
(6 pts) It seems obvious the trap
is closing in response to the bending of the hair cells and the changes in
membrane potential, but how might you prove a causal relationship between
these events? Briefly describe an
experiment and the expected results.