Tentacled aliens from outer space are familiar to us from science fiction, but the octopus may be as alien an intelligence as we can meet on Earth. “It’s an alternative model for intelligence,” said Dominic Sivitilli. “It gives us an understanding as to the diversity of cognition in the world, and perhaps the universe.” Of the 500 million neurons in the body of the octopus, more than 350 million are in its eight arms. These arms have a neural ring that bypasses the brain. The arms can send information to each other without the brain being aware of it. So, while the brain isn’t quite sure where the arms are in space, the arms know where each other are and this allows the arms to coordinate during actions like crawling locomotion. The arms then process sensory and motor information and muster collective action without waiting on commands from the brain. The result is a bottom-up (or arm-up) decision mechanism rather than the brain-down mechanism that is typical of vertebrates, like humans. Processing information in the arms allows the octopus to think and react faster, like parallel processors in computers.

SNEAK PEEK

1. Good & bad fat: One

Chimps and humans share 99% of the same DNA, but why we are the fat primates? An ancient molecular shift in packing DNA inside the fat reduced the human body’s ability to turn ‘bad’ calorie-storing fat into the “good” calorie-burning kind. Who proposed the theory?

1. Duke University biologist Devi Swain-Lenz

2. Good & bad fat: Two

A thermal imaging technique can locate brown fat (the ‘good’ calorie-burning fat) and assess its capacity to produce heat. It’s almost straight, since “brown fat is mainly located in the neck region”. Who found it and confirmed that drinking a cup of coffee can stimulate brown fat?

2. Michael Symonds (University of Nottingham)

3. Three in a dance

To most people, a solar eclipse is a solo performance by the Sun. In fact, “a total eclipse is a dance with three partners: the moon, the sun and Earth”. Which specialist emphasised that “it can only happen when there is an exquisite alignment of the moon and the sun in our sky”?

3. NASA lunar scientist Richard Vondrak

4. Which leg is that?

When we cross our legs, two systems clash. One system locates the left leg as being on the right side, but this is not what is stored in the brain about the side of the body that the leg belongs to. Who found that even healthy people can misattribute touch to the wrong side?

4. Neuroscientist Dr Tobias Heed (Bielefeld University)

5. At the age of five

Fact one: The brain consumes a peak of more than half of the body’s resting energy expenditure when children reach the age of five. Fact two: Humans evolved a much slower childhood because their brains required more energy to develop. Who connected the two facts?

5. Christopher Kuzawa of Northwestern University

6. Are braces cool?

Those who wear braces may have varying levels of crooked teeth, just like those who never had braces treatment. And the latter are more positive than those who have used braces — on a population level. Who recommended “brushing teeth twice” as a far better option?

6. Dr Esma Dogramaci (Dental School, University of Adelaide)

7. Rituals like rodeos

Cowboys raise cattle as if they were a crop to be harvested at the right time. “You don’t want to hurt the herd to the extent that you’ll jeopardize your investment, but you do need to dominate it.” Who saw rituals like rodeos as the symbolic recreation of this economic relationship?

7. UC Santa Barbara anthropologist Jeffrey Hoelle

8. Ethics in the brain

A network of brain regions computes how valuable our options are in decision-making. It internalises the moral judgments of others. “Ill-gotten gains evoke weaker responses in this network”. This is why most people would rather not profit from harming others. Who said this?

8. Dr Molly Crockett (University of Oxford)

9. Colours in the dark

We have two types of visual cells: cones and rods. The cones enable us to see colours, but they require a lot of light. Rods give us night vision but no colour vision. Who found that frogs can see colour even when it is so dark that humans are not able to see anything at all?

9. Sensory biologist Almut Kelber (Lund University)

QUIZ No. 909

1. Who talked about the food axis around which camp life, like that of Boy Scouts, revolved?

– Abigail van Slyck
– Richard Lyman Bushman
– William Cronon

1. Abigail van Slyck

2. Men perceive women as body parts. Who said that women too perceive women likewise?

– Dr Sarah Gervais
– Sandra Ruth Lipsitz Bem
– Renee Rabinowitz

2. Dr Sarah Gervais

3. A small facial muscle of dogs evolved to communicate better with us. Who deduced this?

– Dr Juliane Kaminski
– Edwin Stephen Goodrich
– Rebecca L. Cann

3. Dr Juliane Kaminski

4. Which fictional character proposed “silence, exile, and cunning” as arms in self-defence?

– Stephen Dedalus
– Sir Quixote of La Mancha
– Victor Frankenstein

4. Stephen Dedalus

5. Which city was subject to a bank robbery in 1907, which was planned by Lenin and Stalin?

– Gagarin, Armenia
– Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia)
– Satbayev, Kazakhstan

5. Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia)