Wednesday, May 20, 2020
This is a BIG finding!
Via Eurekalert, this piece of research opens a BIG new door in our understanding of awareness and consciousness.
It's also a brilliant EXPERIMENT.
A research team from the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville, led by Pim Edelaar, has carried out an experimental study that shows that grasshoppers are perfectly aware of their own colouration when choosing the place that provides them with better camouflage. "We have studied a population of grasshoppers that is adapting to living on abandoned paved streets of very different colours. We have been able to verify that the grasshoppers are aware of their own colour, because they choose the type of substrate most similar to themselves, thus camouflaging themselves better..." To verify this thesis, the researchers changed the colour of the grasshoppers with watercolour paint (something that does not affect them more than in their colour), and then observed that they modified their use of substrate: individuals painted in dark colour moved onto the dark asphalt, and individuals painted in pale colour moved onto the pale-tiled sidewalks. "Probably the grasshopper is able to compare the colour of its body with that of the substrate, and subsequently chooses the substrate that contrasts the least," says Adrián Baños.Painting the grasshoppers removes the possibility that green bugs had "evolved" by "accidental natural selection" to favor green surfaces. Natural selection DOES tend to produce such adaptations. By selection, an innately green hopper painted brown should still prefer green surfaces. Instead, the hoppers see their own current color and use it to select surfaces. This unavoidably implies a sense of self, an ability to distinguish what's me from what's not me. I'm gray today, so I should find a gray environment. A nice personal touch from one of the authors:
"It is logical that this happens, but it is not easy to prove it," recalls Alberto Sanabria, whose Master's thesis was the basis of the article. "When I was following the grasshoppers at 40ºC in the Seville summer, I didn't know what we were going to find, but it certainly was worth the effort and the sweat, literally," he adds.
Labels: Constants and Variables, Grand Blueprint
¶ 10:40 AM
