Comparative Vision: Can Bacteria Really See?

Comparative Vision: Can Bacteria Really See?

It has been known for some time that not only animals, but also some advanced unicellular algae possess imaging eyes. Now it seems that even tiny cyanobacteria have what it takes to qualify for the most basic definition of vision.

Animal Vision: Starfish Can See at Last

Starfish have small compound eyes at the ends of their arms. Until recently no behavioural function had been found for them, but now it appears that starfish are able to use them to navigate to the edges of reefs from which they sometimes stray.

Do we really need vision? How blind people "see" the actions of others.

Observing and learning actions and behaviors from others, a mechanism crucial for survival and social interaction, engages the mirror neuron system. To determine whether vision is a necessary prerequisite for the human mirror system to develop and function, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activity in congenitally blind individuals during the auditory presentation ...

Can Juries Really Believe What They See? New Foundational Requirements for the Authentication of Digital Images

Are Uncultivated Bacteria Really Uncultivable?

Many strategies have been used to increase the number of bacterial cells that can be grown from environmental samples but cultivation efficiency remains a challenge for microbial ecologists. The difficulty of cultivating a fraction of bacteria in environmental samples can be classified into two non-exclusive categories. Bacterial taxa with no cultivated representatives for which appropriate lab...