Can jellyfish learn? Yes! Can they play football? No! Catch Jan Bielecki, a biologist at the Kiel University Institute of Physiology in Germany talking about the fascinating abilities of the Caribbean box jellies. From this, there’s also possibly a new solution to energy-saving computing, by remodeling computer processing capabilities to use less energy.
#boxjellyfish #learning #carribeanmangrove #marine #neurotronics #biology #science
Tori Story Copyright 2023.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Tor story today I have a one-on-one talk with biologist Dr Yan Bei about box jellyfish you might have seen recently a story about these fascinating animals ability to learn he has co-authored the paper associa of learning in the box jellyfish and many others in this
Conversation we talk about a lot of different things it ranges it varies quite great quite quite a lot uh we talk about sentients and we talk about the role that neurotransmitters play in neurons of jellyfish uh we talk a bit about Evolution but mainly we’re talking about how jellyfish learn to avoid
Damage or danger and just how intelligent these creatures are um so Yan is an expert in this subject and he currently works as a post-doctoral re researcher at The Institute of physiology at ke Unity University in Germany so Yan and his teams have done research in the Caribbean mangrove
Swamps swimming with the jellyish and figuring out how it behaves in its natural environment um so Yan and his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen have shown for the first time that associative learning has been verified at such a basic evolutionary level thank you for joining me thank you so much
Happy to be here so let’s begin with what made you study jellyfish uh why why not mice or octopus well uh the very little flattering answer is that I’m simply not smart enough to understand mice because they have um a very large Brain and and with that a huge nervous system that
Nobody is really able to understand in detail or at least I’m not so I figured I might as well go with something more much simpler um and the jellyfish has maybe about if if we if we even allowed to call it a brain they have about a
Thousand neurons in it in its brain U but therefore it has um rather good eyes it has a rather good sight and and they it has visual guided behavior um that it so the processes the visual information with with only a thousand neurons and with that
There might be a chance that even I can understand how this um cellular interaction functions like the neuronal neuron neuronal communication um when it it processes this visual information and uh my idea has over the years has been to to try to copy this nervous system in
Electronic Hardware so that we can we can relocate pattern recognition from from software to Hardware so instead of having a computer running the software to perform pattern recognition we can just have the hardware doing it and that’s what we are aiming at right now see
And so if you can tell us a little bit more about why you’re just focusing on the well why would you would like the hardware to focus on pattern recognition as opposed to the software what why that shift in um in Focus well but because um if you like I
Said if if you if you have pattern recognition or any type of processing in software you you need a computer to run that software and that computer uses a lot of energy and um according to Mo’s law we’re going to run out of we’re going to run out of
Energy to support all the computers doing um processing data processing uh Within in the next 50 years so all the energy that we’re producing globally right now will go into just simply running our computers and not warm our houses or whatever else we we use in the
Energy for so um so it’s important that that scientists um try to to remodel the um the computer cap Computing capabilities of of our computers so that they will use less energy and this is one way to do it because if if you relocate the this just the simple pattern recognition to the
Hardware um it will never it will it will use a lot less energy so so it’s um because there’s no computer running it’ll just it’ll just be have to run the hardware so that’s amazing so so there’s not just uh so there’s not just the um the the human well the biologic iCal
Understanding of learning but also the applications that it has for reducing the carbon footprint of computing it You’ said you’ve received quite a lot of interest in in your research so why do you think people are so interested in uh the way that jellyfish learn or the fact that they
Can learn at all what why are people so fascinated by this what are the what are the implications of your um of your research well the thing is if if you can make a a simple jellyfish learn this is at the at the base of our evolutionary
Tree so so it has it was um jellyfish are generally considered the the first organisms to develop a nervous system so if the learning capabilities was already present in the first nervous system it means that maybe we don’t need a huge brain uh to learn anything but maybe
It’s even an integral function of of a neuron so maybe you only just need one neuron to be able to learn and since we trained both a whole animal but also just trained the the brain itself we have a good chance of of pinpointing uh these learning cells it would it’s
Something that would be very hard to do um in in the mouse for instance because the mouse has two two million neurons in in just in the cortex and um and pinpointing learning cells in such a complex system would be rather hard to do but but since we have we had narrowed
It down to maybe 3050 cells um it’s it’s something that we could we could Target uh to see what genes are involved in this learning process and and with that since since they are a cytic group to batarians um we um May and and that the fact that neuronal function and anatomy and
Physiology is very highly conserved throughout the evolution we may have a chance to to understand the the processes um of learning mechanisms of learning that is really interesting I mean so I read in your in your paper that one is it one eye has th 1,000 neurons only and there
Are I think it was 24 eyes right on one box jelly fish it’s almost correct okay they it’s correct that they have 24 eyes okay but um they are clustered six to um this eye brain complex we call rum and so six eyes to um to one rum and the
Rellum has a th000 neurons so it’s not a th per eye but it’s a thousand per six eyes I see the way it works in the jellyfish is that that um they they integrate the information between them so and there’s an override mechanism so we our understanding of the nervous
System is that that only one IE brain complex of rellum is active at the time so it it is basically only using um a thousand a thousand neurons at a time not not all 4,000 because so it’s a little bit similar that that we have areas of our
Brain that we’re not using some some more than others maybe so just for comparison for example how many neurons are there in a mouse brain well I I’m not I’m not a mouse expert but I I I think somewhere somewhere around 200 sorry 2 million neurons in in their cortex
In the entire brain I’m not sure we have we have a 100 million 100 billion sorry 100 billion neurons in our brain and um about a third of that is is occupied by the visual system to support our visual system so about um 30 30 billion neurons
For the visual system and and here we’re talking 1,000 even even in smaller smaller model organism people are very happy about the the fruit fly uh the fruit fly has about 250,000 neurons and the super fish L it’s also widely used model system it has about 100,000 neurons so so this is the
Simplest the simplest processing visual processing system that I know of at least I I can I stand corrected if somebody shows me something else how many how many neurons can learn is it just one or is it a group of neurons or how does it how does it work
Exactly um from from our studies it’s it’s very hard it’s very hard to say I I can say for certain that um that a single neuron has the ability to learn um but the way we conducted the experiments we can say that a group of 30 to 50 neurons is actually able to
Learn and with that that’s a kind of an indication that a single neuron can also learn and evolutionary speaking it it it must be since jellyfish is the is kind of the the precursor of of nervous systems it it probably was this ability to learn was probably um an integral
Function of the neuron and and then there’s been um through Evolution a high positive selection pressure on this ability because if you if you can learn from your mistakes or if you can if you can learn from experience I should say then then you have a huge evolutionary
Advantage because you it’s all about fulfilling your Niche right like survival of the fittest you found your Niche and then um and then you you fill it the best best of your abilities and if you can learn from your um from past exper you have a huge evolutionary
Advantage wow so that’s I mean it’s just never been discovered before that actually jelly fish do learn from past experiences and so what they so can you tell us about your research and what exactly uh how does it work like you you trained them or how did you how did the process
Go um yeah well we did we did train them it’s it’s kind of a it’s a longwind story because uh it it kind of TAPS into to the behavior of the animal in its natural habitat it’s as you said lives in the in and among the the prop roots
Of the mangr trees in in the Caribbean and um they are seeking out these light shafts that are created by the sun shining through the foliage of the mang mangr trees and in between the prop Roots right and in these light shafts um that’s where they find their
Cobert way because the the cob pods are positive phototactic so they congregate in they they congregate in in huge numbers in these light shafts and so the jellyfish likes to be in these light shafts because then they’re feeding there and it’s also um it’s also um mating opportunity because males and
Females behave the same way so so they kind of meet in these um light shafts they’re kind of the the the mango the mangr answer to to clubs I guess wow should we have a look at the video I’m just going to add the video to so
That people can see I can yeah this is uh this is from from our cultures and um as you can see some of the um some of the jellyfish are illuminated some are dark and that’s because they swim in and out of this light shaft that we’ve created for them in the
Lab and yeah so they they want to they want to be in this in these light shafts the problem is that it it’s made a little bit difficult by um these prop roots and they are they don’t want to bump into the prop Roots because the
Prop Roots uh will if they do they will damage the the um the skin of the bell and it’s very thin and if if they make a if they get a lesion on the skin they can get a bacterial infection and they’ll they’ll die so this is something
That is genetically encoded in them they want to avoid these uh mangr Roots I mean that’s so interesting sorry H how do they you know I don’t know anything about genetics and genetic encoding but it’s you you might say that actually they know that something bad would happen to
Them or is it just because of the sensation of bumping into um a m gr root before they can feel pain right oh pain pain is such a pain is such a big topic um pain is a little bit like if a tree falls in the woods and
Nobody’s there to hear it does it make a sound you heard this one before yes I’ve heard it before so the obvious answer is of course it makes a sound you know because the tree falls and you know but if you think of it it’s a more it’s a
Philosophical question yeah if a tree falls in a forest it it will certainly create pressure waves in the air but if you don’t have hearing or like a like a hearing apparatus like an ear or an inner ear and and and all that then it then it doesn’t get translated into
Sound then it’s just pressure waves in air yeah and so if if the jellyfish um it certainly it certainly feels it has mechano receptors so it certainly feels bumping into something absolutely but it doesn’t have the cognitive capabilities to associate that with with a pain feeling so pain is is is something that
Is uh on a higher cognitive level actually it’s the same we as a biologist you always and especially marine biologist you always get the the question if if fish can feel pain and and they absolutely can feel if you try to grab them or you hook them either in
The mouth or back or what have you they can certainly feel that but the question is if they have any um cognition in in terms of pain or if they just like delisted with them maybe an escape response or something because it’s it’s of course it’s of course um not pleasant
To be hooked or or to be grabbed so so it just it just wants to escape but the question is if they have pain it’s that’s that’s a different story it’s only different level let’s just play this video for a little bit so people can see so they’re
Tiny tiny yeah they they’re about um 10 mm uh 10 mm in Bell diameter and about an inch uh oh that’s sorry your your metric also so three two to three cm long um so it’s um yeah I’m sorry I went to school in the US so I got oh did
You okay okay um wow that’s I mean that’s just that’s so fascinating um so how tell tell us about your time in the Caribbean and swimming in the mangrove swamps are they it it it sounds I think it sounds a little more exotic than it really is because um the mang
Lagoons are very shallow and so we we go in and and um either work with the jellyfish or just simply um collect them in among the um in and Among The Roots where snorkling in yeah and um you just you just have to make sure that you
Don’t stir up the the sediment because then you then you can’t see anything anymore so we’re just trying to very gently float in and then um and then uh collect the jellyfish among the the prop Roots I see okay yeah then sorry yeah go ahead soorry you know no continue I was
Just um um it’s it’s not that they so a lot of lot of people have this feeling that that box jellyfish are very venomous and um it’s not just a feeling they are they are venomous all jellyfish all Nigerians so you you have a you have
A lot of blue bottles in in in South Africa yeah been which man of I think they call it in America yeah yeah exactly so I was in um I was swimming off of just north of Durban once and there was like a huge population of blue
Bottles so we couldn’t you were not allowed to go in the or you could go in the water but it like on your own Peril I guess yes so anyway so so so you know that these are Stingers of course they’re Stingers that’s how they um
That’s how they hunt for prey so they shoot this this poisonous dot attached to a protein thread that keeps the prey that first it kills the prey and then it it keeps the keeps the prey attached to the tentacles gosh um yeah and and they all do this even even just the moon
Jellies every every narian do does this because it’s it’s um it’s their strategy it’s their feeding strategy so they’re not doing this for to defend themselves or anything they’re just they just um they see something that looks like food and then they shoot these dots yeah but
They don’t see it they they they feel it so it’s a it’s a recept on the on the on these pneumatic but that’s that’s another for another day um so all jellyfish are venomous all of them all also tin and the um and the um C enemies
And all of them yeah the thing is we we wouldn’t feel it so it’s the same thing with these with these guys they are they’re not they’re not harmful to to us if they they have a cousin in Australia that’s a completely different story I
Mean you you meet you me that guy you’re dead in two minutes I also have a cousin in Australia quite you have also I hope he’s not venomous um they can they can they have a they have a fairly morbid sense of humor down there well I don’t want to say anything about
Australians I’m sure they’re all very nice people they are very nice people but then they like a good sense of hum I’m not saying a more of hum is a bad thing it’s really nice weather there and that’s all that’s pretty pretty much I know about Australia and that um and
That the surfing is really good as well that’s and the Sydney Upper House oh yeah we build that koalas Wala bees that’s you really so sorry the Danes built Sydney Opera House I no idea a a Dane ah Des that’s fantastic he’s the the architect is Danish and he so they went
So much over budget that they threw him out and finished the project themselves so um so wow they um that’s why the the sound in there because if he had finished it The Sound would have been better but then so they threw him out and then they all of a sudden you know
The only thing you know about Australia Sydney Opera house right yeah so they so they try to invite him back but he’s in there you can well that’s good to know yeah um okay so so one random question I want to throw in here
Is um so if you if you’re able to if jellyfish are able to avoid getting damaged is it possible that there so that’s that’s a form of advanced advanced learning am I right so if they if they can avoid that is it possible they could learn how to play a
Game for example I think I read somewhere I don’t know how true it is that goldfish can be taught how to play football and I just was wondering you know is it possible that you can teach jellyfish how to play a game um well of course well first of all
Um avoiding stuff has nothing to do with learning okay so so this is um that that’s um that’s just a response to um to a visual stimulus or tactical stimulus depend how close you are to the Obstacle of course so so there’s no learning involved in obstacle avoidance
Um as such um for playing the game um I don’t know if a jellyfish can learn to play a game it really depend depends on the game I mean if the game if the game is uh to avoid obstacles um um then yes further away further away than they
Appear to be then yes they can play a game because that’s a play that’s the game we played with them okay you think if you if you want to play football that’s a completely different story I I I think maybe maybe I mean first of all goldfish has a has a
Bad rep I mean let’s face it goldfish are pretty smart people not not people people pretty smart um they are I mean they have a huge brain compared to these to the jellyfish they have a huge brain so yeah it’s interesting um and that apparently they you know I think that
That it’s actually been debanked that they have a 3 second memory or something like that apparently is I don’t I I’m not I I don’t since it’s a fish I don’t I don’t think that you want to point any fingers I I think it okay probably the
Capabilities of of um of of learning and storing memory so so that’s the whole thing that okay so so if we if want to go into that this is my pet peeve and and this is something that this study also has demonstrated is that because we were not surprised that the jellyfish
Could learn because this was um this was something it needed to do to survive so we were absolutely certain that this functioning uh learning function was present what was surprising to us is how fast they learn they they are very very fast Learners um in in the behavioral
Experiments where we trained the whole animal I I think maybe three to seven contacts with with an obstacle that they thought was further away they learned to stay significantly further away from from that obstacle and when I trained just the brain by itself it was just five repetitions and it had learned
Already and I I didn’t even test three repetition I could have tested three but you know it’s sometimes never change a running system so it was working with five so I still stuck with five so but but that is very very fast incredible yeah so if you compared compared to like much higher
Um more more complex nervous systems like Drop sorry fruit fly or or the CRA fish it is comparable I mean you can compare across experimental setups but but it’s it’s it’s very very fast learning so the thing is and the reason why we were successful is because we ask the animal
What can you do we didn’t try to to do any uh fancy stuff that that is seen in in in mice or or in the fruit fly the fruit fly navigates um this um flight simulator like a Jedi KN I mean they are incredible and and we we’re not so so
That we we weren’t trying to do that we we asked the jellyfish what can you do and we performed experimentation on the premise of the animal it’s like don’t judge a fish by the ability to climb a tree that’s basically what it down if you for instance try to to teach a rat
To um avoid foot shock foot shock is used in in a lot of learning experiments because it’s a an aversive stimulus it’s a pain basically so it’s a punishment and so if you teach a if you try to teach a red to avoid foot Shock by
Pressing a lever it may never learn and they I mean rats are smart cats right yeah well not but you know what I mean um they’re very smart and and so the problem is that they when they get foot shocked they don’t hang around long enough to push levers they just want to
Get out of Dodge so so it’s it’s just against their Natural Instincts to to stay around and that’s why they they you some rats will never learn but rats are very very smart PE smart people I want to say people right very very smart animals and they they um
They have a great learning ability but you never you’ll never know if you you if you just do that experiment yeah so there’s certain intell type of intelligence that are that for example obviously you can’t put a human being uh in the same situation as a jellyfish and
Expected to survive as well as a jellyfish would I think or I think you I think you get bored with the cuisine cuisine before anything and interestingly as you mentioned Instinct so an animal has has Instinct and like any animal um and I just thought about my
Dog who that is a Jack Russell and she is yeah highly highly hardwired for certain for a certain purpose and um and that purpose is catching rats catching and killing rats and any small creature and and of course it’s really disturbing for me to come across this kind of behavior but what’s
Interesting is how you said um you know if you try to train you know on that on that on that sort of measure of intelligence for example you can train a border how to sit and how to do a trick uh really really fast and but of course border
Coles are intelligent in that way but I could not train my Jack Russell to sit ever and she will not it doesn’t matter what you give her she won’t do it and um so so so on that scale of things she’s completely untrainable um but on every other level that she’s instinctively
Bred for I mean she’s just outstanding you know just can’t even couldn’t even ask for a a bit rat catcher but is annoying though isn’t it I have a I have I have a weener dog and that’s that’s absolutely untrainable it just does whatever de you
Know you can do whatever you want it’s it’s it’s not possible exactly I mean I had a little Bast yeah I had a bought a colag that I trained a trick trained to do a trick in less than a minute it was incredible in like one go she understood I think she understood
What I was saying even maybe I don’t know that’s an exaggeration but but yeah there’s just interesting how different animals have a different kind of intelligence okay so but it’s it’s a it’s a phrase it’s actually a term coined in the in the 70s it’s it’s a species specific defense reaction and if
And if you adhere to to the principles of this animals will learn much much faster than if you don’t so it’s and it’s it’s kind of it’s become my pet peeve because I I think a lot of um a lot of the reproducibility problems that
That we have in science is caused by the different approaches to um to the animals especially when it comes to to the the keeping of the animals so so that you that you keep them in in completely different environments in in different labs and then they they learn differently also of
Course yeah that’s so interesting I mean that that that really I mean that that puts a whole different perspective on learning and on different types of intelligence and different animals um yeah yeah but just from the fact that that if if you usually mice are kept in
In cages of three and four and um or three or four um and and you have a you have one alpha dominating Mouse and then you have um the the what do you call it the the sub subordinate Mouse and then you have two in between right and and that’s the
Thing I mean how would how would you how would you get expect to get the same behavior out of those four M it’s um it’s I don’t I don’t understand that and and um I see I also so another problem is that that you you
Kept them you keep them on a night uh light dark light light dark cycle so and you keep the light on during the day and the and and the and the lights out during the night and the the researchers come there they are lazy as anybody and
They don’t want to work at night so they work during the day so you work at you you work during the day with mice that are in the light and they are nocturnal animals yeah so that doesn’t make work on sleeping mice basically or jet leg mice wow I mean gosh
Well that’s got to have some serious implications to the outcomes of the research yep that’s okay well well I it’s good that you pointed it out I mean maybe now that there’s a little bit more exposure about this something can change about the way that
We study mice and I know that mice I think I think the community coming around but I mean and the whole thing is I’ve never seen a mouse table with a with a window so it’s it’s just a of switching the the timer on the on the
Light so it’s not a wow an issue at all actually well the scientific Community better get their act together the P because you never know who might say what okay Um uh okay so so tell us more about um the the jellyfish nervous system how how does this how do the nerve neurons communicate with each other do they use similar similar neurotransmitters like serotonin or dopamine that we have in the human brain or how do they communicate with one
Another um it’s um yeah it’s interesting you mentioned that it’s it’s um they only have chemical synapses we we’ve never found Gap Junctions or electrical synapses in the in the jellyfish so they all communicate with neurotransmitters and we did a study a number of years ago and and found
Um that dopamine serotonin and different types of uh neuropeptides are present in the repia nervous system maybe even acids or choline it’s a debatable it’s still debatable I um I try to do it but yeah that’s the thing with acid choline it it it gets uh
Consumed by just by water so fast that it’s it’s hard it’s hard to get re to get it to reach the um the neurons but we we did knock out the neurons by using kurari so it’s a it’s a neuron nervous tox neuron toxin that attacks nicotinic receptors it’s it’s
Very specific so but it so yes dopamine serotonin and different types of um neuropeptides they’re working wow um so I do kind of wonder if uh if jellyfish uh if they have they the if the neurons use dopamine serotonin that means that they have a s certain feeling
I don’t know that maybe they’re happy maybe they’re sad sometimes uh um yeah again we’re back to the tree in the woods yeah it’s a very philosophical question very philosophical tot speculation we don’t we don’t know the we don’t know the exact location of the um serotonin and dopamine
Receptors so it could be let’s say for instance that they are um connect to the pacemaker output the the Pacemakers are in the this propellum okay and they control the Bell contraction so every time you have a pacemaker signal come going through the motor neuron you have a bell
Contraction and um we’ve seen that serotonin if you add serotonin and dopamine they reduce the the pacemaker signal frequency so it could be that so when when a jellyfish swims and it swims into this light shaft that I was talking about um just a second ago they stop
Swimming and and they sink out they are slightly negatively bned and then they drag the tentacles behind them and that’s how they they catch this Cobo prey so so what they do is when they when they come in um into this light shaft the the eyes get flooded with light and they stop
Swimming so if you if you say Okay serotonin and dopamine is involved in this stop swimming so stopping so you stopping the um the pacemaker signals um you could say that you could argue maybe that you know because the jellyfish really likes to be in these light shafts they they like they feed
There they meet women there so they they’re good and and if if that’s a if that’s due to a dopamine or tonin release you know is are they are they happy jellyfish but it’s it’s it’s a very it’s of course a let’s have a look at that
Video again it’s um they they don’t have the the ctive ability to be yeah but if you look at it if you look at the other side you know obstacle avoidance is or could in a philosophical way maybe be considered a fear response right yeah they fear they fear
Being they fear hitting this obstacle so they do this obstacle perform obstacle avoidance behavior and so that could be considered a fear response so but it’s I mean it’s very we we very speculative we’re just totally wildly speculative about things like I mean this is sort of borderline animal
Sentience debates um yeah but you also have to remember one thing um and this is very important because it’s it’s all a matter of definitions yeah it’s who who made the definition of of feelings what what are feelings who who made that definition so of course it’s of course if you if you
Look at it of course a mouse have feelings it’s it’s you can you can see you can you see them if if if they if they’re in pain you can see it in their facial expression of course they have feelings so but but and so if if you’re
Working with mice and you define feelings yeah then you’re going to get something that’s related to mice the problem is that that we we are working in the boundaries and so maybe maybe you it’s it’s time to redefine the the terminology right yeah so even even the
Even the fact that they don’t jellyfish does not have brains officially so because there was a meeting once there was some very very clever people professors and they had a meeting and then they wanted to establish which animals have brains and so after the meeting one of the professors U called my PhD
Supervisor and to inform him that he was sorry but um they decided that jellyfish do not have brains these are very clever people but you have to understand that the jellyish don’t give a flying fiddle sticks about professors having a meeting in Germany yeah they they are just living
Their life in the in the mangr and they’re processing Vis information and they’re using it to guide their their behavior and they are actually also learning so yeah you know I I don’t I don’t know you know we can decide all we want but the animals really really don’t
Care yeah it’s like it’s like your jack russell you can he doesn’t care if you want him to sit or not he’s not GNA do it yeah so until until we have the experience of of being a jellyfish we probably would never know maybe [Laughter]
Well yeah no yes we do they don’t they don’t have the cognitive capability of of um of relating this to an emotion okay of course of course yeah okay again what’s the definition of an emotion you know of course of course it Seas an obstacle and it doesn’t want to
Bump into it so it avoids it but is is that a is that a is is that fear is that an emotion fear and then a response avoiding fear or avoiding something unpleasant I I don’t know I I guess you have to be a philosopher to answer that question but yeah it’s very
Interesting it’s all in the definitions yeah right it’s almost I mean there’s something quite I just want to add that there’s something quite machine like about these little box jellyfish because they’re kind of so simple and that they have this like they have eyes and then attached to those eyes are
Neurons and those that’s like basically and then they’re all connected but am I right they’re all connected right so that’s a all not all of them entire system is really geared just towards detecting specific things in its environment and it’s just a visual processing system is simple um
Like like that’s that’s that’s all it is it’s almost it’s almost machine like it’s like it has a very simple function um and it does what it does and you’re right because it’s they like like I said they have these um six eyes on on the
Rum and two of those are lens eyes like like our eyes and oh yeah there you there you go that’s um so so the lens SI are the ones we’re working with because that’s the ones we understand the best yeah um but they’re not they’re not general purpose eyes like like our
Eyes here you see them on the on the bottom yeah the lower lens eye and the upper lens eye those are and the and and this is also where the repal nervous system is inside this um complex here you have these thousand neurons and um
What did I want to say what was the question again um the so basic neur but the thing is the thing is these eyes they’re not they’re not general purpose eyes like we we have two eyes and they do everything for us but but their eyes they um they they look exactly right
They look you’re right they look for a pattern or something we call matched filters so they they are they’re looking for specific um information in the from the environment and then they act upon that so so the the the lower lens ey has per its purpose is to seek out the light
Shaft and to avoid obstacles and the upper lens eye U is involved in in what we call longdistance navigation because it looks out of the of the water and sees the the the canopy of the mango trees and they always want to be under the Under The Canopy because they know
That’s where the light shafts and the food and the women are right so I’m sorry I know it’s a little crew com the thing is the thing is the women when with the women is is is because we we we culture them but we cannot we don’t have females in culture
We we’ve never been able to have females mature females in culture so they’re all males so that’s why it’s see it’s a joke Mon it’s an in joke inappropriate but it’s it’s just you know no no no don’t worry about it okay yeah so so um yeah so so they so
They are they have different um they’re looking for different different cues from their environment and and that but it’s it’s a it’s actually that’s a relatively well-known um thing from the from the Animal Kingdom spiders especially they they have a bunch of eyes that they where they also only look for very very
Specific cubes so fascinating that’s that’s that’s kind of normal I mean I think the the general purpose eyes like in the in the mammals it’s it’s uh that’s the um that’s the exception to the rule more or less yeah very cool um okay so uh now I’d
Like to ask you a few uh questions about you and um just to get an idea of yeah just the kinds of things that influenced you so for example um which literary work of fiction has had the greatest impact on your life and why yeah I mean I I have to admit that
Um you gave me this question beforehand and I’ve been thinking about it and yeah I’m not I’m not entirely sure that that I can name a single uh fictional work I mean I did I I I used to be an athlete so we we uh we traveled a lot and and uh
I was so every time you got to the airport you you bought a book because this I’m I’m older than the hills so so this was before the internet and and I was never so I was never really into music because music meant you had to carry um a lot of equipment
Um to to to listen to music so I’d rather have an extra pair of shoes for instance so so so I was never into music but what we did was we were always like buying books at the airport and it I kind of I’m not I don’t know if it I
I it’s I don’t know I don’t know which came first the hen of the egg but but um I always gravitated to what’s these these um crazy story or authors that kind of Twisted the world upside down and and made you made you think about like what the hell are
We doing like like Terry pret or Douglas Adams like that right yeah Terry I mean I I have a twisted sense of view anyway so so it’s uh but I like you know these these guys that that it’s completely out of left field but it makes you think it
Really makes you think that but what the hell is this all about so I don’t know if they inspired me or I was always like that and gravitated towards these people but yeah yeah that’s cool I mean definitely also has been my favorite the very thinking novels that make you really
Think about life and what we’re doing here the big philosophical questions um like hitch Haack his Guide to the Galaxy and um uh what was the other one that I was just thinking of now oh yeah Terry pratchet and Neil Gaiman um good Omens yeah they made a they made a series out
Of that one have you seen it I have it’s brilliant brilliant absolutely brilliant crazy it’s crazy it is crazy that one yeah thing it’s absolutely brilliant yeah um so um and the next question I have is these are would you rather questions which I love would you rather questions
They’re just so ridiculous um would you rather make friends with an octopus or a jellyfish and why well I obvious answer is an octopus I mean jell way too boring as a friend I mean it has no it has not it has very little to offer but but but as
A as a experimental model like a model organism i’ much prefer the jellyfish because the octop octop octopuses octopi they I think actually you can say octopus now but it’s it just sounds just wrong yeah it does so the the octopi are just so intelligent
And and they have such a huge brain and a behavior repertoire that it’s Absol absolutely incredible and and I I wouldn’t have the first clue of what to ask them it’s except of course who’s going to win the World Cup we in Germany we had this Paul octopus who predicted
And I think was even World there was the World Cup in South Africa I think yeah yeah I remember that so well he predicted the outcome of the German matches absolutely weirdest thing I mean just imagine like in another reality that that octopus was actually some kind of
Mystic Oracle and that we’re kind of the whole time missing the point that you know we just need to ask octopus octopi for the big questions in life what’s life all about probably tell us but you know it’s the mice you know it’s the mice right oh yeah I know it’s the mice
Yeah from Hitchhikers Guide yeah it is the mice I know they’re doing the experiments on do sorry not the other way they’re doing the experiments on us not the other way around exactly [Laughter] yeah y That’s it okay so um and uh would you rather
Work in an aquarium or in the ocean and why oh again this is a little bit the question is what you mean by an aquarium uh I mean I’d absolutely love to be a part of of a big aquarium where I was taking care of the the jellyfish
Um display but um I mean if if you’re talking about the lab and and the field um I mean it’s very enjoyable to be in the field I mean just just the day on on on the wat and the Sun is of course vastly different than sitting in in a
Lab in in the raining K but both both have advantages and disadvantages I mean it’s in the field it’s very very hard to exclude um factors it’s it’s really really hard to to um yeah we like to exclude one factor at the time to see how that affects
Something right and it and it’s just basically it’s mostly impossible in the field I mean all yeah what I like to do in the field is Observe and get and get ideas um to what I’m going to do in the lab and in the lab I’m going to I’m
Going to try to if see if I can recreate the the visual environment for the for the jellyfish yeah fantastic and so and there you can of course exclude all the factors you want right so yeah okay well yeah that gives us I mean it gives us a very good indication of
The kind of work that you can do in the field and in the lab cool thank you okay so for those who want to study in your field what exactly uh do they need to do um and you know why would they want to study this why would somebody want to become a
Biologist a biologist I have I have no idea I I simply I could I simply couldn’t tell you go do something do something real real life become an artist something make get a real job get a real job that’s that’s my advice but I mean your job is is tough
And it’s it’s extremely it’s I mean flying to the Caribbean and swimming around in mangroves I mean that’s not exactly an easy task and and you never know where this research is going to lead us in the next 100 years that’s it’s important absolutely true so
You I mean you you you you’re playing the the long game right and but and even even just becoming a a biologist I mean there’s there’s two ways of becoming a biologist right there’s there’s you can be a biologist and working working in a company or or you can do
Research and if you if you have the um Misfortune to choose research then you of course have to also do a PhD I mean if you if you if you so it’s a lot of basically it’s a lot of schooling it’s a lot of sitting on your ass listening to
Teachers yapping on and on about something that you have marginal interest in but um er yeah so so you can be a biologist you know working in in in a company and you you need a masters for that and they’ll hire you but if you want to apply for your own funding and
All that you you’ll need a PhD and so that’s adding time served on top of of the the masss I guess yeah it’s a lot of time right what is it like um a lot of Education reading a lot of books but it’s but it’s no different from any
Other other field I guess it’s it’s um yeah lot of interesting so but I mean but I really en I really still really enjoy you know the the Practical work the the the experimentation and and the field work and and also um on my my grayer
Years I I’ve um come to really enjoy scientific exchange with with colleagues and getting ideas and yeah and not necessarily have to do the work I mean the fun part about your job I mean I don’t know what it would be like but the fun part about studying and
Being in academics is that you’re just always learning this fascinating stuff about the world and I that’s pretty much the reason why about the small exactly a very highly specific small part of the world but I think that’s one of the reasons why that’s the reason why it’s did this
Channel is because all this information I find is so fascinating it’s just like he gets to sit here and go wow oh my go how interesting so I I think it’s a wonderful I mean I personally think it’s a wonderful job I really I I I love
Science I mean I’m quite um I’m quite a fan of reading all like the science journals magazines and um and of course can I just stop you there for a second do do you have a recording error on your end too a recording error no I don’t see it no
Okay I have recording error oh recording tab to learn more oh it might just be on your side because there’s actually two recordings so the recording on my side and on your side but I yeah I don’t actually so that you have you have a you have a version
We can both download it but uh it’s fine on my side thank goodness okay I didn’t want to interrupt I just want to give your heads up because I I don’t know how long it’s been read here in my end but um it’s that’s okay no it’s all good it
Should all be fine it’s all good on my side and so yeah I do I I think I think it’s just so interesting I loved um I loved doing my Master’s Degree and um and so this has been wonderful learning from you in um in the in the in the
Biology field um and I don’t think I’ll ever look at octopus octopus sorry jellyfish the same way again no that’s that’s that’s a danger that’s the danger of getting to know them but um you’re most welcome I’m happy to Yap about my work been a pleasure I’m sure everybody
Has been equally as like fascinated by this and of course please I just always encourage people to leave comments and you know ask questions you know if they’re interest they’re interested in the topic and um like subscribe and share so that more people can uh get get access to this
Information and thank you so much for joining us I’m gonna end it there you’re very wel thanks so much Yan I appreciate it bye then bye