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.

Comments

Re:Let the flamewar begin!

[labnet]

You make a valid point.

I've seen teams of engineers use all of their collective intelligence to create systems that are only a fraction of the complexity of mere parts of biological systems, yet all systems tend toward disorder.
So lets say God created Adam and Eve. I would expect that perfect master copy to eventually degrade over time (which is easily evident though genetic disease), but with evoltution, these seems to be this magical sameness about kinds. I would expect much more diversity about a kind (man for example), eg lets say tens of thousands of man type people have monochromatic vision, then one man amazingly develops RGB vision. Well hey thats nice, but not a big enough advantage that I would displace everyone with monovison. Now don't try and pick apart that one example, as the point I expect to see thousands of such expamples of MAJOR differences between one kind that may provide small advantages, but not enough for natural selection.
For example, lets say one man developed telescopic vision today. (These are the sort of major steps evolution proclaims). Sure thats an advantage, so how long before 99% of the population gets telescopic vision.
Then evolution has to say... oh there no evolution anymore we've reached our 'peak' (an excuse).

All systems tend toward disorder.