Study Confirms: Bacteria Have Ability to See Objects "In Basically The Same Way That We Do"

a reply to: Raggedyman
To be fair, sight=/=intelligence.

a reply to: Tiamat384

Ok yes their sight and size and age would suggest they may be far more intelligent than we imagined
Or if you like, far more advanced up that magical tree some tend to believe in

So to repeat, Their sight, not there site

originally posted by: Raggedyman
a reply to: Tiamat384

Ok yes their sight and size and age would suggest they may be far more intelligent than we imagined
Or if you like, far more advanced up that magical tree some tend to believe in

So to repeat, Their sight, not there site

I don't quite gather how you equate sight and age with intelligence.

Care to elaborate?

originally posted by: PhotonEffect
a reply to: Tiamat384

What's interesting is how the bacteria are able to perceive/observe without a brain.

Plants don't have brains but do the same sort of thing, only more slowly.

Phototaxis is a nice bit of feedback control, but doesn't imply intelligence or judgement.

originally posted by: beansidhe
Exactly, since we process information gathered through the rods and cones, in our brain. For years now I've been under the illusion we 'see' with our brain. And now this slime has waltzed in and completely obliterated that illusion.

Slime isn't "seeing" the way you do, either. It's looking for the direction the light's coming from.

originally posted by: Tiamat384
a reply to: PhotonEffect
Well yes without a brain, but the microscopic version, the nucleus still gathers data, does it not?

The critter in the paper is a prokaryote.

originally posted by: stormcell
It is possible to act on visual input without having a brain. Jellyfish have some basic logic based on the input from all their eye-spots. They keep swimming towards the darkest object they can see until they are in the shade.

That's essentially what's going on here, only they put all their eye spots on one side of the bacterium and use the protoplasm as a lens to sort out the incoming light spatially.

a reply to: Raggedyman
I wasn't complaining about your spelling....it's just that sight does not equal intelligence...critical reading...

Intelligence is separate from all of those three...you were making a correlation between sight and intelligence.

a reply to: Bedlam
Oh right, cyanobacteria are prokarayotes.

Thanks for reminding!

a reply to: TerryDon79
There is no correlation, clearly as even organisms with brains can not read critically...

Amazing. But please note that the ‘eye’ and the bacterium are one and the same thing. From the linked paper:

Spherical cyanobacteria are probably the world’s smallest and oldest example of a camera eye.

It isn’t that these bacteria have eyes. The are eyes.

Raggedyman
To suggest that they have sight makes them a far more complex organism than anyone could have probably imagined

No, it does not. The fact that some bacteria are photosensitive — that is, ‘have sight’ — is common knowledge. Also from the linked paper:

Bacterial phototaxis was first recognized over a century ago

That, Raggedyman, was the very first sentence of the linked paper, so it is obvious that you didn’t even bother to look at it in your rush to regale us with your opinion.

a reply to: Astyanax
Ok, basing off what you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, but are you suggesting that they can only see where there is light rather than what the OP is saying that they can see as humans do, but at a lower resolution? I agree completely on your analysis of the OP though.

a reply to: Tiamat384

correct me if I'm wrong, but are you suggesting that they can only see where there is light rather than what the OP is saying that they can see as humans do, but at a lower resolution?

They don’t have brains, so it would be absolutely impossible to build up a complex visual picture of the world.

a reply to: Bedlam

Slime isn't "seeing" the way you do, either. It's looking for the direction the light's coming from.

Oh ok, so it's less 'basically the same way that we do' and more 'exactly the same way that plants do'? How disappointing.

a reply to: Astyanax

So this is a hoax?

a reply to: Tiamat384

Not at all. What has been discovered is that the bacterium uses the same image-projecting process our eyes use: a variable-index lens that projects an image of what is observed upon a photosensitive screen, creating what we would call a picture. That’s all.

The bacterium has no brain with which to interpret the picture; the way the light falls on the ‘screen’ causes its body to make certain movements that carry it toward the light. All this happens automatically.

originally posted by: beansidhe
a reply to: Bedlam

Slime isn't "seeing" the way you do, either. It's looking for the direction the light's coming from.

Oh ok, so it's less 'basically the same way that we do' and more 'exactly the same way that plants do'? How disappointing.

Bacteria do it faster. But the big difference is, instead of scattering photoreceptors all over, the bacteria does it more efficiently by using a lens and a matrix of receptors. That's different. But it's still a phototaxis. You could build a simulator with relays and photocells that would do the same.

Here's another thing they do - the bacteria is covered with little chemical receptors, and it can look for gradients of chemical concentration by comparing the number of receptors that are set off from one end to the other. Some chemicals it will run toward, others, it will run away from. In it's own way, the chemotaxis system is more cool. YMMV.

No, it's acting more like a staring-array missile guidance system than a mammalian eye. That doesn't mean it's a hoax. It's still pretty neat. But they used a simplified example of how it worked that was misleading.

a reply to: Bedlam

Cheers, thanks for explaining. I can't pick between phototaxis v chemotaxis for coolness - both of them creep me out ever so slightly.