Why the octopus is so smart: fascinating new research indicates that their DNA sequence is expanded in areas otherwise reserved for vertebrates: "It's the first sequenced genome from something like an alien," joked neurobiologist Clifton Ragsdale of the University of Chicago, in a report in Nature.
And now we have super-smart mice: When researchers altered a gene in mice to inhibit the activity of a particular enzyme, these mice showed enhanced cognitive abilities. They tended to learn faster, remember events longer and solve complex exercises better than ordinary mice. See this explored in Science or Science Fiction: Uplifting Animals in Yale Scientific.Will the mice rise up? See the theme song for.... Pinky and the Brain!
Meanwhile, evidence of social learning: New Caledonian crows have been observed to pass tool use from one generation to the next.
Why we're smarter than chickens: A single molecular event in a protein called PTBP1 in our cells could hold the key to how we evolved to become the smartest animal on the planet, University of Toronto researchers have discovered.
Researchers find new insights into the impressive brain power of dolphins and whales... and how their intelligence evolved. And the variety of dialects (clicks called codes) among pods of the deep-diving sperm whales may indicate signs of cultural transmission of vocalization patterns.
It's long been believed that giraffes were silent creatures; it turns out that they hum to each other -- a low frequency drone, done only at night.
Now it's chimps against drones -- a smack down with a stick. There are increasing signs that drones are harassing wildlife and disrupting their natural patterns. Recently, the National Park Service banned the use of drones in California's Yosemite National Park.
And...sex would be simpler if we were bonobos!
In Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things, M. R. O'Connnor takes an in-depth look at the increasing numbers of animal species threatened with extinction, and the methods scientists use to try to save them, including habitat restoration, captive breeding and genetic management. O'Connor also considers the ethics and problems we face as genetics enables us to resurrect or bring back already extinct species. Will they live in zoos... or newly recreated ecosystems? What would they eat... and what would eat them?
Researchers find new insights into the impressive brain power of dolphins and whales... and how their intelligence evolved. And the variety of dialects (clicks called codes) among pods of the deep-diving sperm whales may indicate signs of cultural transmission of vocalization patterns.
It's long been believed that giraffes were silent creatures; it turns out that they hum to each other -- a low frequency drone, done only at night.
Now it's chimps against drones -- a smack down with a stick. There are increasing signs that drones are harassing wildlife and disrupting their natural patterns. Recently, the National Park Service banned the use of drones in California's Yosemite National Park.
And...sex would be simpler if we were bonobos!
In Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things, M. R. O'Connnor takes an in-depth look at the increasing numbers of animal species threatened with extinction, and the methods scientists use to try to save them, including habitat restoration, captive breeding and genetic management. O'Connor also considers the ethics and problems we face as genetics enables us to resurrect or bring back already extinct species. Will they live in zoos... or newly recreated ecosystems? What would they eat... and what would eat them?
Will humans continue to get smarter as well? See this video discussion of the dilemma of potential human enhancement.
== Smarter machines ==
A rodent brain chip? A fascinating article describes IBM’s new “True North” chip architecture, which propels the “neuromorphic” revolution in computing, mimicking many of the pattern-recognition capabilities that seem to work so smoothly in the cellular brains of animals… like us.
What about sentient machines? Oh but will Artificial Intelligence stay loyal? That’s the quandary getting discussed ever-more, outside of science fiction nowadays. But here’s an interesting offshoot from that question. Will AI entities be subject to addictions? This interesting article features experts claiming that would be “illogical.” But what are Asimov’s so-called “three laws” if not a kind of ingrained addiction process? My brief bit in this piece answers. “They had better be!”
Augmented Reality rolls along. For example, in EXISTENCE I portray a future time when advertisements and meta data about your surroundings will display in banners or postits or symbols, overlain on “reality.” Now a virtual signage company Skignz can let you place a virtual pin on objects -- pop one above your car, for instance, and it will help you find it when you're in the supermarket car park. Or you can drop a roving pin on a friend at a festival to keep track of him via GPS. Or festival operators can offer signs above the concessions and toilets… or adverts, or rock videos and close-ups of the band, onstage. (See the chapter at the futurist conference, in Existence!)
Following up: in most sci fi depictions, this era will see a tsunami of noise and unavoidable adverts booming out at you, as in Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report.” That modality is “push” and I don’t think folks will put up with it. In Existence… and earlier in Earth (1989) I portray this being a matter of “pull.” You will select among a myriad realms or levels of AR space, picking one whose offerings and services and rules suit your current needs.
== Intelligent plants? ==
In Brilliant Green: the Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence, plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso and journalist, Alessandra Viola, make a case not only for plant sentience, but also plant rights. Interesting, though science fiction authors have been doing thought experiments about this for a long time, e.g. in Ursula LeGuin’s novel “The Word for World is Forest” and in my own “The Uplift War.”
There is a level where I am all aboard with this. Ecosystems are webs of health that combine fiercely interdependent predation/competition with meshlike interchanges of sight/sound/chemicals that clearly manifest types of cooperation, even communication.... as I elucidated in “EARTH.”
On the other hand, I also step back to see the qualities of this book that transcend its actual contents, for it fits perfectly into the process of “horizon expansion” that I describe elsewhere. A process of vigorously, righteously, even aggressively increasing the scope of inclusion, extending the circle of protection to the next level, and then the next. See also this Smithsonian talk I gave about the never-ending search for “otherness.”
None of this is to undermine the process! Only to help understand it. I fully expect our great grandchildren will all be vegetarians supplementing with tasty, dish-grown meaticultures… and their own rebels will demand that all food come from algae or Star Trek replicators, terrific! Just pause and step back often enough to see the big picture.
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| Tree of Life |
Biologists have drafted the first comprehensive tree of life covering 2.3 million species of named animals, plants, fungi and microbes, available for download and browsing.
A new study adds to evidence that viruses are living entities which share a long evolutionary history with cells, and might even be the oldest living creatures.
Might amputees regrow limbs, using their own stem cells laced through a scaffold… made either by 3D printing or using a denatured monkey-arm? It’s an idea explored in my short story “Chysalis” (before I get much, much weirder). But it is also being taken very seriously in labs across the planet.
In fact, BioBots now offers a relatively inexpensive 3D printer that can print human tissue and skin...and potentially, replacement human organs. However, there are currently regulatory obstacles.
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| Pathogens travel between species |
Everywhere you go... you emit your own unique microbial cloud -- a personalized signature of your own microbiome. Have you had your microbiome tested? You can have it sequenced at μBiome, to gain insight into the multitude of microflora co-inhabiting your body.
MIT researchers have developed a low-cost, paper-based device that changes color, depending on whether the patient has Ebola, dengue, or yellow fever. The test is designed to facilitate diagnosis in remote, low-resource settings, takes minutes, and does not need electricity to read out results. “Color-changing paper devices that work like over-the-counter pregnancy tests offer a possible solution. “These are not meant to replace PCR and ELISA [lab tests], because we can’t match their accuracy,” Hamad-Schifferli says. “This is a complementary technique for places with no running water or electricity.”
See this way-cool “spaghetti monster”creature at the borderline between coral-like colonies of cells and jellyfish and more complex styles of life. A reflection on how more complex metazoans got started? Weird-looking, anyway.
