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No one draws pictures of heads with little gears or hydraulics inside any more. The modern conceptualization of the brain is firmly computational. The brain may be wet, squooshy, and easy to serve with an ice cream scooper, but it is nevertheless a comput ...

Article - Mark Changizi - Nov 16 2009 - 4:38pm - 0 attachments

A new instance of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltonii , more commonly known as the colossal squid: A HUGE squid weighing 120 kilograms found off Portland [Australia, not Oregon] last week is believed to be a rare species to south-west waters. Local f ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Apr 9 2012 - 6:16pm - 0 attachments

To be specific, the Humboldt squid are back in California . Their opening act was a mass stranding on Black's Beach in San Diego last Saturday. A lifeguard had the most poetic commentary on the matter: "Of course, as you might imagine, there ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Jan 15 2012 - 7:33pm - 0 attachments

... solutions to life’s problems: eggs, eyes, wings, brains, echolocation, sociality, and the like.  Convergence is a well-known ...

Article - Michael Shermer - Apr 28 2011 - 2:20pm - 0 attachments

Where are we humans going, as a species? If science fiction is any guide, we will genetically evolve like in X-Men , become genetically engineered as in Gattaca , or become cybernetically enhanced like General Grievous in Star Wars . All of th ...

Article - Mark Changizi - Aug 2 2011 - 12:24pm - 0 attachments

... camera eyes. Whether it has developed other senses such as echolocation or electrical field sensing to back this up again,  depends ...

Article - Oliver Knevitt - Feb 25 2011 - 10:42am - 0 attachments

Hot new squid research has the world of cephalopod reporting all abuzz! The press release came out last Monday, so I'm a bit late to the game, but hey, that means I get to meta-report on the way everyone else reported it. In brief: Michel André and ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Apr 21 2011 - 1:25pm - 0 attachments

... is "increasingly strong" evidence that sperm whales use echolocation to find prey. This is the same technique made famous by bats and ... P. (2004). Sperm whale behaviour indicates the use of echolocation click buzzes 'creaks' in prey capture Proceedings of the Royal ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Oct 29 2010 - 3:37pm - 0 attachments

A question occurred to me the other day, which was to consider how science might have developed differently had humans possessed different senses.  As an example, humans are significantly visual, but it is interesting to consider how things might be ...

Blog Post - Gerhard Adam - Jan 5 2011 - 2:37pm - 0 attachments

... now, here is a tantalizing thought about the evolution of echolocation . . . You know how dolphins bounce sound off of objects ... see them, but they developed the ability to find them by echolocation. We suggest that echolocation in early odontocetes aided ...

Blog Post - Danna Staaf - Oct 28 2010 - 11:57pm - 0 attachments