3-D glasses for mantids

[HungryGhost]

I kid you not:

http://www.designntrend.com/articles/13253/20140428/praying-mantis-will-be-first-to-try-3-d-glasses.htm

 

[Falconerguy]

wut

 

[bobericc]

Lol imagine seeing a mantis with 3d glasses attacking the air in front of a screen playing 3d blue bottles

 

[Krissim Klaw]

Great, just great, now I'll never get them to leave the TV. They already spend way too much time staring at it as is.

 

[Digger]

They're spending 1M Pounds Sterling for this nonsense? My mantids would be rolling over with laughter.

 

[hibiscusmile]

seems to me they have enough eyes as it is!

 

[Domanating]

When I saw this thread title: "wat...-.-"

When I read the article: "WHAT?!"

I mean... Really?! I don't even... I don't... I just don't.

 

[Falconerguy]

Yeah, there aren't any words to be said. Other than......wat.

 

[Paradoxica]

 

[sally]

Wow! Aww I wonder how they stuck him to the Pencil thing... Hopefully with beeswax like the glasses....

 

[Falconerguy]

This has got to be the stupidest use of money I have ever seen

 

[Gill]

Understanding how neurons (nerve cells) turn photons into 3d depth perception by modelling the neuronl computations is not a wate of money. The mantis is the simplest model system to study this in. To quote the researcher on her home page

And although modern techniques have revealed many of the brain areas which contribute to primate 3D vision, the neuronal circuits involved are simply too complex for us to reconstruct using currently-available techniques

he relative simplicity of the insect system means that the circuitry can be traced much more easily. For example, one can realistically seek to identify all inputs to a given neuron. Connections between different brain areas can be traced by filling and reconstructing individual neurons. Modern genetic and optogenetic techniques are enabling increasingly sophisticated interventions, e.g. reversibly inactivating all neurons of a particular class.

he mantis seems physically optimised for 3D vision. It has a triangular head to maximise the 3D vision baseline, a massive binocular overlap of >70deg, and a forward-facing fovea – a specialised region of high visual acuity – in each of its compound eyes.

The results of the research will have many benefits in addition to understanding how a neuron converts 2d to 3d vision, for example breaking camoflague .

Some people might think scientific research is a waste of money, for example a lot of money os spent on fruit fly research that I think the politician Palin commented on as being ridiculous to study fruit flies. Fruit flies are also used for a lot of brain science research as they have large nerve cells and understandable systems . They are a model oorganism for quite a few research areas (as the mantis is for 3d vision) for eexample how anaesthesia affects consiousness, the impacts of drugs on heart and muscle cells, they are used for Down's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, autism, diabetes, ageing research, cancers of all types and much more.

So for brain science a lot is done with insects and I believe it is important as I work on lung cancer research