An amoeba who raises bacteria crops is the world's tiniest farmer | Hacker News Reader

An amoeba who raises bacteria crops is the world's tiniest farmer

news.sciencemag.org

46 pointslotusleaf19875 comments

Coincidentally the news arrived just one day after the dog that learned 1000 words was discussed on HN

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2113830

    - We've clearly underestimated the intelligence of every animal we've ever dealt with.
    We only ever revise our estimates of animal intelligence upwards.

    - would you say we've "underestimated the intelligence" of, say, jellyfish?

Jellyfish question remains open, but underestimating the intelligence of the amoeba is even more impressive.

Amoebas are often underestimated. What many geeks -- even those with a keen interest in biology and neural networks -- don't realize is that Eukaryote cell membranes are capable of impressive computational feats.

Just pause to reflect: An amoeba's membrane can sense object and grab them. Paramecia and Euglena can navigate their environment and find food. Where is the computation that facilitates these behaviors happening? It turns out that much of it happens at the cell membrane.

Guess what synapses are? Synapses are the same mechanisms repurposed for data processing.

Seth Grant discusses this in this podcast:

http://www.brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/2008/12/6/surprising-...

Tomorrow: Monsanto Sues Amoebas!

More seriously, I could see this turning into a major development in the pharmaceutical industry. If amoebas could be bred to farm beneficial types of bacteria, I can imagine all sorts of products could be produced much faster. This could lead to a seismic shift in that industry!

They raise them - then they eat them.

I smell a new Facebook game!

The quotes in the article are kind of cringeworthy.

"I was going, 'This is really odd,'"

"I was going around in the lab going, 'Yay! Yay!'"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com