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Cells In the Retina Tile Like Puzzle Pieces
tim writes "Recent work at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif. shows that cells in the retina sample visual space like a multi-layered jigsaw puzzle. High resolution measurements of light response reveal that individual cells have irregular shapes, but together their shapes coordinate to tightly cover visual space. This type of large scale, exquisite coordination could be a general organizing principle of the brain, but no one has seen it previously because technical obstacles typically prevent recording from large cell populations." Here's a link to full paper.
Fits together like puzzle pieces? I think the dames call it "Tessalation"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
I cannot see the big breakthrough here. For example, the corneal endothelium also fits like a puzzle. The cells are responsible for pumping water out of the cornea. That only works properly when all cells coordinate to cover the entire back-surface. When a cell dies, then other cells will migrate and change shape to fill the gap. Cells do die as cell concentration decreases with age.
They talk about an exquisite coordination that is finely tuned to prevent blind spots while avoiding overlap.
Perhaps it is more like cells with random variation simply growing outward until reaching a neighboring cell at which point some chemical signaling occurs to establish a mutual border.
Or maybe a time lapse of cell cultures would show an ever changing chemical war fighting over the borders like neighboring corals do.
A system like this should provide maximal coverage with minimal overlap with no exquisite coordination beyond the individual cells.
That sounds so complex, it's almost as if it could only have been created by god. ...
(I'm kidding. Please be gentle!)
What is this?
Not only is there a link directly to the article, but there is a link to the actual paper!?
In spanish that eye disease is called cataratas, and that word can be translated too to waterfalls. When read about a puzzle in the eye, tetris was my 1st idea with that in mind.
Will this type of thing be of any use in fixing that problem people have with color?
I hate to say it but the fact that our vision system has complete coverage over the visual field is so f**ing obvious and has been shown so often before that there should be little need to do yet more research on that subject.
What is really valuable and novel about this research?
you're eye is just organically attracted, narcissistically, to patterns that resemble itself
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The intelligence of evolution never ceases to amaze me. It must have spent billions of eons in the planning before it even dared to kickstart its creation of the universe. The number of fantastic designs it has come up with, all working together, is astounding. We humans have a long way to go before we can even dream of catching up.