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Why the father of neuroscience, toward the end of his career, preferred to study ants.
Newsletter brought to you by: [Morning Brew]( May 05, 2022 Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here](. Dear Nautilus Reader, Have you ever had a âterrifying sensation of the unfathomable mystery of lifeâ? Thatâs how the father of neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, described the experience of [beholding the retina of insects](. Cajal was renowned for his discovery of brain cells, but the outbreak of World War I left him feeling dejected about human beings, and he turned his focus to ants. As Benjamin Ehrlich, author of The Brain in Search of Itself, a new biography of Cajal, writes this week in Nautilus, âThe world of ants provided not only an escape from the horrors of the war but a new arena in which to study living creatures that were, like neurons, dynamic in their own right.â Should we reach out to ET? Last month, a group of researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech and several international organizations proposed an idea for a message that could be transmitted toward a star cluster nearer to the Milky Wayâs center, to increase the âreachâ of the signal to any aliens that might be listening. Astrobiologist Caleb Scharf wonders whether the new signal, and the ones that came before it, are sending [the right message](. Weâre [spotlighting Imani Black](, a native of coastal Maryland who is working to bring people of color into marine conservation and production. With the launch of her own organization, Minorities in Aquaculture, she's âcreating a space where women can pursue any sector of aquaculture theyâre passionate about, and have the tools to create a career on their own terms,â she says. And donât miss todayâs Facts So Romantic. Experience of the endless possibilities and deep human connections that science offers [SUBSCRIBE TO NAUTILUS]( [NEUROSCIENCE]( [âI Have to Admit, I Have a Very Low Opinion of Human Beingsâ]( Why the father of neuroscience, toward the end of his career, preferred to study ants. BY BENJAMIN EHRLICH In 1914, when World War I broke out, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the most influential neuroscientist in the worldâthe man who discovered brain cells, later termed neuronsâpublished only one article, by far his lowest output ever. [Continue reading â]( [Morning Brew]( [Start Your Day With a Fresh Cup of Morning Brew]( There's a reason over 4 million people start their day with [Morning Brew](. Readers get need-to-know business news that keeps them informed and entertainedâfor free! Sign up for the daily email that [delivers the latest news]( from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. [Subscribe Now]( [COMMUNICATION]( [We Better Think Twice About What We Say to ET]( Extraterrestrials could take our intergalactic message in entirely the wrong way. BY CALEB SCHARF Parents around the world tell their children to be careful about speaking to strangers. [Continue reading â]( [COMMUNICATION]( [A Voice for Minorities in Aquaculture]( Imani Black is working to bring people of color into marine conservation and production. BY JOHN STEELE & ADRIENNE DAY A native of coastal Maryland, Imani Black grew up in the shadow of Chesapeake Bayâs Black watermenâa line of fisherfolk that stretches back 200 years. [Continue reading â]( Enjoying this new section? [Let us know](mailto:info@nautil.us?subject=Facts%20So%20Romantic). FACTS SO ROMANTIC The Best Things We Learned Today In the late 1800s, the French inventor Charles Cros thought about using mirrors to signal to any intelligent life on Mars or Venus. He would use these to focus sunlight and burn features onto the desert zones of those worldsâpossibly the most aggressive notion of extraterrestrial messaging anyone had at that time envisioned. To be fair, Cros had a special kind of creative mind. His proclivity for writing poemsâsuch as âThe Kippered Herringââpresaged the absurdist antics of Monty Python by more than a half-century.
[Nautilus â]( Dejected by World War I, [Ramon y Cajal](, the father of neuroscience, studied ants. He focused on their homing instinct and created obstacles for them. His students recalled that Cajal reveled in the fiendish tricks that he devised to stymie them. He placed mirrors in front of their nest and blocked its entrance with a rock. He covered one of their eyes, both of their eyes, and even removed their antennae. He put an ant on a piece of wood, raised it in the air, and spun it around to make it dizzy. Then, with his magnifying glass, he observed his subjects as they always found their way home.
[Nautilus â]( People are far more likely (30 times, in fact) to laugh if theyâre with someone. Even more so in an audience, especially if its members feel similar to one another. Psychologist Sophie Scott has found that laughterâeven riotous uproaring laughter at a dad-jokeâis more about fitting in, and less about how funny something actually is. Something to remember at your next stand-up amateur hour.
[Nautilus â]( Do we have [remarkably large brains]( for our middling size? Indeed we do. Thereâs a certain scaling relationship between brain and body mass: Animals that are 10 times larger than other animals tend to have brains that are only 6 times larger. But our brain is about 10 times larger than you would expect for a mammal of our size. In his new book, anatomist William Harris writes, âHuman brains are 4 times as bigâand we have about 4 times as many neurons in our brainsâas our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, whose body size is similar to ours.â Score one for human exceptionalism.
Zero to Birth: How the Human Brain Is Builtâ]( Under the law, corporations have rights like people. But what kind of people? A recent study by psychologists Nina Strohminger and Matthew Jordan found that people consider the average corporation to be about as similar to a person as an ant. Hence the pithy title of their paper, âCorporate insecthood.â âWe do appreciate that in some sense our conclusions are Kafkaesque,â the authors write. ââMicrosoft Corporation woke up one morning to discover it was a bug.ââ
[Cognitionâ]( [BECOME A SUBSCRIBER]( Learn Even More About the World of Science Your digital experience isnât complete without a [Nautilus eBook](. These eBooks feature articles designed to spark curiosity and wonder about science and how it relates to the critical issues our society is facing. [Learn from the world's best writers and scientists]( and join them at the forefront of human knowledge with Nautilus. [PURCHASE NOW!]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( Copyright © 2021 NautilusNext, All rights reserved.
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