Ayoung scientist has discovered a new species of grub worm in the amazon. he would like to explore the possibility that in this grub worm the codon cuc is the start codon and codes for methionine, not leucine as it does in other worms. to date, he has been unable to get his research funded, most likely because a. worms have been extensively studied and their genomes are simple. b. worms do not contain homologous genes to humans.

A. is the answer.

Worms have been found to have at least 8 genes homologous to humans, which are expressed in neurons. Therefore, B. cannot be true.
I'm not sure how extensively this has been studied, but here is some evidence with round worms: https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2164-5-85

I realize the question says grub worms, but the answer options seem to be referring to all worms irrespective of the particular species of worm. Hope this helps!

A.  worms have been extensively studied and their genomes are simple

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