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How to make a mind—part4

It took our universe between 13 and 14 billion years to make minds like our own. It took our planet 4.54 billion years, and life between 3 and 4 billion. What if we took a process we know can produce minds, namely evolution, and simulated it. Maybe, if we could zero in on the right factors, we could manage to create something like a mind in much less time.

Here’s a link to a documentary on the evolution of our species.

Mankind Rising

Here’s a link to a newsgroup FAQ that was one of the first references I found on the subject of simulating evolution in order to solve problems. It’s still there, and it’s still good.

A Hitchhikers Guide to Evolutionary Computation

As most methods of simulating evolution run on computers, I’ve started a series of blog posts on how computers compute. Here’s a link to the first of two whole posts that have been written to date.

Build your own computer

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No species alone

Large complex multicellular life and simple single celled creatures have been evolving together. Each species requires an environment similar to the one in which it evolved in order to grow and develop normally. That includes the other creatures that have been evolving along with it. Today, we talk about how mice, deprived of their usual microbial symbiotes, show changes in their behavior as adults—changes that cannot be reversed.

Here’s the paper on the experiment and the results.

Normal gut microbiota modulates brain development and behavior

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The things you make me do

It’s strange but true. A microscopic single celled organism can change the behavior of animals that it infects. From a snail that climbs instead of hiding below, to rabies, to a disease that causes rodents to lose their fear of cats; behavior can be changed by a sickness to make it more likely that the disease will spread.

Here are some articles on toxoplasmosis, which can cause rats and mice to become unafraid of, and even become attracted to, cats.

The Parasite That Makes a Rat Love a Cat

Mind-Bending Parasite Permanently Quells Cat Fear in Mice

This tiny brain parasite seems to make rodents braver—and it likes humans, too

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Just not complete without you

Symbiosis between animals and bacteria is very common. In some cases, animals will not develop fully without their microscopic partners—sometimes, they can’t even reproduce.

Here’s a paper on the bobtail squid, and the light producing organ that doesn’t develop fully without the correct strain of bioluminescent bacteria.

Bacterial symbionts induce host organ morphogenesis during early postembryonic development of the squid Euprymna scolopes

Here are a couple of articles on parasitic wasps, and the effects on their reproduction caused by their microscopic hitchhikers.

Removing symbiotic Wolbachia bacteria specifically inhibits oogenesis in a parasitic wasp

Essential but unhelpful wasp Wolbachia

And here’s an article that talks about the link between animal behavior and their microbial symbiotes.

Animal Behavior and the Microbiome

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When your partner moves in

Many life forms live in partnership with other organisms. The cooperative relationship is called symbiosis. Sometimes, one of the cooperating creatures lives inside of the other, even inside the cells. When one creature lives inside of another one that it cooperates with, it is called endosymbiosis. Today, we take a look at a few examples.

Here’s a review of endosymbiosis, with many examples.

Endosymbiosis

Here’s a couple of articles about Salamanders and algae—the only known vertebrate case of endosymbiosis where the symbionts live within the vertebrate cells.

Algae that live inside the cells of salamanders are the first known vertebrate endosymbionts

Scientists Just Found a Completely New Kind of Symbiotic Relationship

Here are a couple of academic papers on the recently discovered cellular symbiosis between salamanders and algae.

Intracellular invasion of green algae in a salamander host

Transcriptome analysis illuminates the nature of the intracellular interaction in a vertebrate-algal symbiosis

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The tickle me plant

Today, we talk about another fast moving plant, called mimosa pudica, AKA. Shame plant, shy plant, touch me not, or the tickle me plant. This little plant will curl up its leaves when they are touched.

Here’s a video that shows the tickle me plant in action.

Mimosa Pudica – The Sensitive Plant

Here’s an article on growing and caring for mimosa pudica as a house plant.

How to grow Mimosa Pudica

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By request, the Venus flytrap

We move and eat via our nerves and muscles, but there are some plants that have no nerves and no muscles, and yet they still move and eat. Today, we talk about the Venus flytrap, and how it why it does what it does.

Special thanks to @StoneyJehker34, for the question and the topic.

Here’s a video showing the Venus flytrap in action.

VENUS FLYTRAP JAWS OF DOOM!!

Here are a couple of articles about this interesting little plant.

The Mysterious Venus Flytrap

Venus Flytraps Are Even Creepier Than We Thought

Here’s a paper on how the plant counts touches against its trigger hairs to decide how much substance to produce to digest its prey.

The Venus Flytrap Dionaea muscipula Counts Prey-Induced Action Potentials to Induce Sodium Uptake

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DNA that does nothing?

It seems that most of our DNA is dormant. It doesn’t encode for protein production. Some of this supposedly dormant DNA has recently been shown to have important functionality, but there still seems to be much more information present than is used.

Here’s an article on the debate over how much of our DNA is functional.

Is Most of Our DNA Garbage?

Here’s an article on gene sequences that appear to have come from other organisms, entering our genetic code through horizontal gene transfer.

Humans may harbor more than 100 genes from other organisms

Here’s an article on DNA sequences that have been written into our DNA by viruses, some of which might still be capable of making us sick.

An ancient retrovirus has been found in human DNA – and it might still be active

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Not how we’d do it

Evolution creates designs in ways that human engineers probably wouldn’t. We probably wouldn’t use eyes to grow a brain, or pseudo-gill-slits to grow a face, but evolution does.