Tagged: marine science
Run Crustaceans, Run!
When humans fall ill, we can go to the doctor to receive a diagnosis and treatment. We have a form of communication, and our body has good indicators that can help the doctor diagnose the problem. But what happens when we are trying to diagnose organisms that have no way to tell us what is wrong, and no way of knowing how badly they are affected? For instance, in the case of many marine organisms, illness is being caused by humans. We have used our oceans such that they now contain areas with little to no oxygen, where life is barely sustainable. How does this, combined with ongoing pollution and human activities, stress marine life? More
The Mantis Shrimp
The mantis shrimp diverged evolutionarily from the crustacean mainline about 400 years ago and have since developed unique characteristics. Unlike most other crustaceans, they actively hunt prey and kill it with a crushing blow which has been theorized to be strong enough to create bubbles containing gas at temperatures upwards of 2000 Kelvin. This quality, however, is nowhere near as stunning as the mantis shrimp's most incredible attribute: their eyes. In April 2001, the most comprehensive paper to date describing the mantis shrimp's visual system was published by Justin Marshall and Thomas Cronin in The Biological Bulletin. In their paper, the authors described the unusual characteristics of the mantis shrimp visual system and hypothesized the applications of this system in the development of machine vision. More
