| ▲ | How octopuses squeeze through too small gaps(journals.biologists.com) |
| 41 points by bookofjoe 10 hours ago | 12 comments |
| Paper: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/229/21/jeb252825... Videos (from the paper): https://movie.biologists.com/video/10.1242/jeb.252825/video-... https://movie.biologists.com/video/10.1242/jeb.252825/video-... https://movie.biologists.com/video/10.1242/jeb.252825/video-... https://movie.biologists.com/video/10.1242/jeb.252825/video-... |
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| ▲ | randomImmigrant 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| An octopus is what results when water gains consciousness. |
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| ▲ | Crunchified a minute ago | parent [-] | | I think of jellies more that way than octopuses, but consciousness in primitive creatures is a debatable topic. |
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| ▲ | hatthew 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I love that their justification for this study is robots. I think science for the sake of learning is good and justification isn't always necessary. But it's so funny that we've moved beyond search and rescue as a justification for cool robots, to cool robots as a justification for studying octopi. |
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| ▲ | alsobrsp 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | We lost that with the decline of the corporate research labs. PARC, Bell Labs, Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, and such are shadows of what they used to be if they are even still around. Those facilities used to look at long range ideas and we are still reaping the benefits. Most research now is product centric, looking maybe 2 years ahead. I blame the tax cuts of the 80s and 90s. | | |
| ▲ | Amorymeltzer 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well, that and the faux-/manufactured outrage from US Congress. Things like Coburn's waste book were designed to lampoon and degrade seemingly silly or wasteful basic-science research from just a cursory overview of the title or cherry-picked facts. That's part of a larger agenda alongside cutting basic research for cuts-sake, but it means that everyone in science is searching for a justification for even the most meager of funding. Human biomedical health is a good target—if you can come up with any plausible link, your odds of funding are better (maybe)—and I suppose robots aren't a bad one either. The NSF has a list of responses to various such things: <https://www.nsf.gov/about/congress/wastebooks> |
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| ▲ | chris_va an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Amusing parallel: https://www.xkcd.com/2128/ |
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| ▲ | Crunchified 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| How octopuses squeeze through too small gaps Obligatory click-bait title comment... The article describes how octopuses get through holes in one of two ways, one for larger holes and one for smaller holes. Spoiler: An octopus cannot get through a gap that is too small. |
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| ▲ | bookofjoe an hour ago | parent [-] | | I'm curious: Your comment implies that you find the title misleading. What would you suggest instead? | | |
| ▲ | mrkstu 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I think adding ‘seemingly’ would cover the basis of violating the law of contradiction. | |
| ▲ | Crunchified 23 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How about very small gaps instead of "too small gaps". Simple change to the title, but far more accurate and non-contradictory. But would you still click on it? | | | |
| ▲ | badlibrarian 34 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | "How octopuses squeeze through an opening far smaller than the body diameter" is boring, verbose, and a quote from the article. |
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