Off Topic: How Locusts Calculate Safety
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Parent Category: News
Category: 6 Blog
Created on Tuesday, 17 April 2012 20:55
Written by Brian Zwahr

A bit off topic from our usual safety related posts, Baylor College of Medicine has a very interesting, albeit fairly technical, article concerning how locusts calculate the time and path of when they jump out of harms way from approaching danger. 

It turns out that when a locust is in "danger" (e.g., when something is approaching), it uses two variables to determine how and when to jump to safety. These two variables are used, represented by their logarithms, to calculate a complex equation, and the most interesting part is that this equation is calculated in a single neuron inside the insect's brain.

This is a marvel, for sure, and it will be very interesting to see if and how this affects computations in the future. I can't help but wonder if this information will eventually be used to shape some sort of artificial intelligence that can determine danger and calculate safety more efficiently than can be achieved currently.

For more information, I encourage you to read the source article, below.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled posts...

Source: Baylor College Medicine

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