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Fruitflies that can count?!

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  • 12-07-2012 6:10pm
    #1
    Mickeroo
    Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,228 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭


    A team of geneticists have bred fruitflies that can count apparently:
    team of geneticists has announced that they have successfully bred fruit flies with the capacity to count.

    After repeatedly subjecting fruit flies to a stimulus designed to teach numerical skills, the evolutionary geneticists finally hit on a generation of flies that could count -- it took 40 tries before the species' evolution occurred. The findings, announced at the First Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in Canada, could lead to a better understanding of how we process numbers and the genetics behind dyscalculia -- a learning disability that affects a person's ability to count and do basic arithmetic.

    ....

    The humble fruit fly -- which has been a popular experimental tool for geneticists since the early 1900s, its brief life span making it evolve faster -- is the first example of a test subject gaining the skills through evolution

    Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-07/11/fruit-flies-can-count
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    #2
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Thats actually amazing. If I didnt get the wrong idea from the article it shows intelligence improving based on artficial selection.


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    #3
    Mickeroo
    Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,228 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Thats actually amazing. If I didnt get the wrong idea from the article it shows intelligence improving based on artficial selection.

    Yeah, thats what I took from it too. Pretty astounding in fairness.


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    #4
    Adam Khor
    Registered Users Posts: 5,279 ✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Mickeroo wrote: »
    Yeah, thats what I took from it too. Pretty astounding in fairness.

    Like the lab chimps in Rise of the Planet of the Apes? :O


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    #5
    Mickeroo
    Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,228 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    Adam Khor wrote: »
    Like the lab chimps in Rise of the Planet of the Apes? :O

    I for one welcome our new insect overlords :P


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