Lifeboat Foundation

The unique ability of cuttlefish, squid and octopuses to hide by imitating the colors and texture of their environment has fascinated natural scientists since the time of Aristotle. Uniquely among all animals, these mollusks control their appearance by the direct action of neurons onto expandable pixels, numbered in millions, located in their skin. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies/Goethe University used this neuron-pixel correspondence to peer into the brain of cuttlefish, inferring the putative structure of control networks through analysis of skin pattern dynamics.

Cuttlefish, squid and octopus are a group of marine mollusks called coleoid cephalopods that once included ammonites, today only known as spiral fossils of the Cretaceous era. Modern coleoid cephalopods lost their external shells about 150 million years ago and took up an increasingly active predatory lifestyle. This development was accompanied by a massive increase in the size of their brains: modern cuttlefish and octopus have the largest brains (relative to body size) among invertebrates with a size comparable to that of reptiles and some mammals. They use these large brains to perform a range of intelligent behaviors, including the singular ability to change their skin pattern to camouflage, or hide, in their surroundings.

Cephalopods control camouflage by the direct action of their brain onto specialized skin cells called chromatophores, that act as biological color “pixels” on a soft skin display. Cuttlefish possess up to millions of chromatophores, each of which can be expanded and contracted to produce local changes in skin contrast. By controlling these chromatophores, cuttlefish can transform their appearance in a fraction of a second. They use camouflage to hunt, to avoid predators, but also to communicate.

Plants do have sentience they just need less to survive. Just look at the sci fi character groot. They may not seem like they are sentient but they show it in different ways because they are plants, not humans. Essentially they even give off radiation aswell their biology is so advanced that even today there are still mysteries unsolved. Many energy-sensitive people can feel their energy they emit and can intuitively know their needs. Even native Americans have even learned that they are superorganisms on earth and have found ways to bring their rain through a series of metaphysical triggers. The native Americans advanced wetware and spirit binds to the plants then allows for even a psychic link talking to the plant even on their level. The earth itself is said to be a superorganism. A lot of times on plant can be a psychic link between their vast universe of understanding but it takes plant intuitive people. Many legends have risen from plants being sentient even in modern-day. In my opinion, plants are just as complex as human beings because they require less energy to function. There is a comic in the series poison ivy that even made plant children in humanoid beings. I think this is a definite possibility just it is advanced wetware. But as we learn more about the quantum mechanical realm we will discover that plants may be more advanced than even our own biology. That why often we need to respect nature because it is actually sentient and we evolve with it. Someday we really could be tree people just it would take a long time to eventually make real. But it is a very real possibility.

For the first time plants have been recorded making sounds when stressed. The sounds differed when they were injured or thirsty, a finding that could help farmers.

New studies help to explain how microbes in the gut can shape a host’s fear responses.

The tail of a feathered dinosaur has been found perfectly preserved in amber from Myanmar.

The one-of-a-kind discovery helps put flesh on the bones of these extinct creatures, opening a new window on the biology of a group that dominated Earth for more than 160 million years.

Examination of the specimen suggests the tail was chestnut brown on top and white on its underside.

Circa 2017 A magnonic holographic matrix could be used to essentially treat the water in a solid-state way.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have applied quantum techniques to understanding the electrolysis of water, which is the application of an electric current to H₂O to produce the constituent elements hydrogen and oxygen.

They found that electrons can ‘tunnel’ through barriers in aqueous solutions away from the electrodes, neutralising ions of impurities in that water. This can be detected in changes in current, which has applications for biosensing, the detection of biological elements in solution.

Continue reading “Quantum tunnelling in water opens the way to improved biosensing” »

The coldest chemical reaction in the known universe took place in what appears to be a chaotic mess of lasers. The appearance deceives: Deep within that painstakingly organized chaos, in temperatures millions of times colder than interstellar space, Kang-Kuen Ni achieved a feat of precision. Forcing two ultracold molecules to meet and react, she broke and formed the coldest bonds in the history of molecular couplings.

“Probably in the next couple of years, we are the only lab that can do this,” said Ming-Guang Hu, a postdoctoral scholar in the Ni lab and first author on their paper published today in Science. Five years ago, Ni, the Morris Kahn Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and a pioneer of ultracold chemistry, set out to build a new apparatus that could achieve the lowest temperature chemical reactions of any currently available technology. But they couldn’t be sure their intricate engineering would work.

Now, they not only performed the coldest reaction yet, they discovered their new apparatus can do something even they did not predict. In such intense cold—500 nanokelvin or just a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero—their molecules slowed to such glacial speeds, Ni and her team could see something no one has been able to see before: the moment when two molecules meet to form two new molecules. In essence, they captured a chemical reaction in its most critical and elusive act.

Biochemical makeover allows Escherichia coli to use carbon dioxide as a building block for its cells.

Julian Melchiorri’s “Exhale” is a piece of green lighting where algae help purify air. The prototype chandelier was recently at the London Design Festival.

Scientists have solved the structure of one of the key components of photosynthesis, a discovery that could lead to photosynthesis being ‘redesigned’ to achieve higher yields and meet urgent food security needs.

The study, led by the University of Sheffield and published today in the journal Nature, reveals the structure of cytochrome b6f — the protein complex that significantly influences plant growth via photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is the foundation of life on Earth providing the food, oxygen and energy that sustains the biosphere and human civilisation.