
An amoeba who raises bacteria crops is the world's tiniest farmer - lotusleaf1987
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/01/the-worlds-smallest-farmers.html
======
Evgeny
Coincidentally the news arrived just one day after the dog that learned 1000
words was discussed on HN

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2113830>

    
    
        - We've clearly underestimated the intelligence of every animal we've ever dealt with.
        We only ever revise our estimates of animal intelligence upwards.
    
        - would you say we've "underestimated the intelligence" of, say, jellyfish?
    

Jellyfish question remains open, but underestimating the intelligence of the
amoeba is even more impressive.

~~~
stcredzero
Amoebas are often underestimated. What many geeks -- even those with a keen
interest in biology and neural networks -- don't realize is that Eukaryote
cell membranes are capable of impressive computational feats.

Just pause to reflect: An amoeba's membrane can sense object and grab them.
Paramecia and Euglena can navigate their environment and find food. Where is
the computation that facilitates these behaviors happening? It turns out that
much of it _happens at the cell membrane._

Guess what synapses are? Synapses are the same mechanisms repurposed for data
processing.

Seth Grant discusses this in this podcast:

[http://www.brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/2008/12/6/surprising-...](http://www.brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/2008/12/6/surprising-
discoveries-about-synapse-evolution-with-seth-gra.html)

------
athom
Tomorrow: Monsanto Sues Amoebas!

More seriously, I could see this turning into a _major_ development in the
pharmaceutical industry. If amoebas could be bred to farm beneficial types of
bacteria, I can imagine all sorts of products could be produced much faster.
This could lead to a seismic shift in that industry!

~~~
JoeAltmaier
They raise them - then they eat them.

------
april101
I smell a new Facebook game!

The quotes in the article are kind of cringeworthy.

"I was going, 'This is really odd,'"

"I was going around in the lab going, 'Yay! Yay!'"

