Science and Culture Today Discovering Design in Nature
Topic

cuttlefish

lobster
Photo credit: David Clode via Unsplash.

What Do Animals Feel? And What About Babies?

With human babies, those who propose laws against cruelty suddenly enter a Cold Zone, at least compared to their feelings for crustaceans. Read More ›
lobster
Photo credit: David Clode via Unsplash.

What Does It Mean to Say “Lobsters Are Conscious”?

Much will be learned from a more careful analysis of the behavior of life forms, which will likely turn up many more instances of unexpected sentience. Read More ›
Cuttlefish
Photo credit: Martin Cathrae from Charlottetown, PE, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Yet Another Engineering Innovation from Cuttlefish 

It was never a given that when scientists looked deeper into life, they would find such exquisite designs; but they did. Read More ›
Jumping Spider
Photo: Phidippus audax, a North American jumping spider, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dreaming Animals and Human Exceptionalism

Researchers have detected something like REM (rapid eye movement) sleep — which is associated with dreaming in humans — in jumping spiders. Read More ›
octopus eye
Photo credit: Nathan Rupert, via Flickr (cropped).

Geneticists Puzzled by Octopus’s Unique Genes: Seem to Have Appeared Out of Nowhere

“Evolution of novel genes”? Isn’t that the question at hand? Where do novel genes come from? Read More ›
octopus-bimaculoides-3-credit-tom-kleindinst-sized
octopus
Photo: California two-spot octopus, by Tom Kleindinst via Marine Biological Laboratory.

MicroRNAs: A New Clue About Octopus Intelligence?

While octopus brains are very different from vertebrate brains, they share with vertebrates, a huge number of microRNAs. Read More ›
Eurasian jay
Photo: A Eurasian jay, by I, Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Researchers: More Intelligent Jays Show More Self-Control

The researchers say that the same relationship holds true for cuttlefish, chimpanzees, and humans. Read More ›
Large_brown_mantid_close_up_nohair
Photo: A large brown mantis, via Wikimedia Commons.

Do Invertebrates Have Feelings?

Just as vertebrates differ greatly in intelligence and sentience, invertebrates may differ greatly too. Read More ›
octopus
Photo credit: Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

Can Largely Rearranged Genomes Explain Why Octopuses Are So Smart?

Even compared to each other, the genomes of three cephalopods studied had been broken up and extensively reorganized. Read More ›
Humboldt squid 2

Squid’s Got Talent — Super-Powers Astonish Scientists

The humble squid astonishes scientists with its super-powers. Are these marine champions really the products of random mutations and natural selection? Read More ›

© Discovery Institute