DailyDirt: Non-human Intelligence

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Humans aren't the only animals on our planet that can communicate with other members of our species. As we study more of our fellow creatures, we continue to find surprising instances of intelligence and thought and problem-solving abilities. Here are just a few examples.

• Japanese scientists have created images showing how a thought moves through the brain of a zebrafish. The brain activity doesn't look particularly complex, but it's a start -- and it could lead to a better understanding of how other brains work. [url]
• Slime mold doesn't have a brain, but it can figure out complex problems -- if we give set it up under the right conditions. The slime mold Physarum polycephalum can navigate a maze and find the shortest path when given a map made of carefully-placed food. [url]
• Almost anyone who has observed ants closely knows that ants can communicate via trails of chemicals (pheromones) and by touching each other -- but some ants can also communicate using sounds. Researchers have recorded some of the sounds, and they've seen ants respond to the recordings as if their fellow ants were calling to them. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: animal intelligence, ants, brains, communication, intelligence, pheromones, slime mold, smart animals, thoughts, zebrafish

DailyDirt: Learning From Nature

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Biology has solved a lot of problems over millions of years, so we might as well try to learn from it. Here are just a few examples of using biological systems to help improve our own technology.

• Slime mold can be used to verify the efficiency of Japan's railroad networks. Creating a food map of Japan and letting mold grow over it sounds like a fun science project for kids! [url]
• Researchers in distributed computing problems are learning from insect nervous systems. By studying how a fruit fly develops its sensory organs, we can learn the strategies of biological evolution and apply similar techniques to technological problems. [url]
• Security software that mimics ant behavior is a project that's been around for awhile. So the bad guys are probably already writing ant-eater malware.... [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: ants, biology, computation, fruit fly, security software, slime mold