| ▲ | trhway an hour ago | |||||||||||||
and from another post on the front page right now https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49735541 : "Nervous systems are typically defined as networks of neurons that communicate across synapses. But Burkhardt’s lab found something unique in ctenophores: Beneath the animal’s outer surface is a nerve net (pink mesh in this 3D reconstruction) whose neurons are connected by continuous cytoplasm — but with no synapses between them. “I don’t think any other animal has a nervous system like that,” Burkhardt said. Because ctenophores are one of the earliest branches of the animal family tree, the finding indicates that evolution may have crafted nervous systems twice: in ctenophores, and separately in jellyfish and all other animals." | ||||||||||||||
| ▲ | ozim 35 minutes ago | parent [-] | |||||||||||||
Funny thing when reading that is as a human I read „crafted nervous system twice” like it would be done over a week or two. We fail to imagine how much time takes to „craft a nervous system”. Super scary how small are we in big scheme of things. | ||||||||||||||
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