

Jellyfish Use Novel Search Strategy - robabbott
http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/08/14/jellyfish-use-novel-search-strategy/

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ahelwer
Worth noting that the search algorithm, simulated annealing, is a
metaheuristic algorithm - meaning, it's modelled after an existing natural
phenomenon (in this case, metallurgical annealing). Other metaheuristic
algorithms familiar to HN readers include genetic algorithms and ant colony
optimization algorithms. Given the nature of these algorithms it isn't
shocking to see them in the wild, but it is interesting.

It might even be more accurate to say the model of metallurgical annealing
used in simulated annealing has parallels with a model of jellyfish search
behaviour, rather than jellyfish "using" simulated annealing to find food.

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todd8
The nervous system of jellyfish, the oldest multi-organ animals (0.5 billion
years) [1], is primitive. The neurons are arranged into a nerve net with hints
of limited central actions. It doesn't surprise me that something akin to
annealing is taking place since that form of search is very simple and could
be imagined to take place with very simple distributed actions, having just
one global, time-varying parameter T, known as the temperature [2].

Wouldn't almost any other effective search technique be more complex to
implement in a very simple nerve net? If jellyfish were found to utilize say
genetic optimization based search then I would really be surprised.

For more information (than you probably want to know) about the nervous system
of jellyfish see [3].

[1] [http://societyofbiologyblog.org/the-peculiarities-of-the-
jel...](http://societyofbiologyblog.org/the-peculiarities-of-the-jellyfish-
nervous-system/)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing)

[3]
[http://jeb.biologists.org/content/214/8/1215.full](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/214/8/1215.full)

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lubujackson
I'm not getting what this "novel strategy" is. The jellyfish ride currents
back and forth in search of food... so? Does anyone have an article with
actual info about the strategy?

~~~
accatyyc
I thought exactly the same thing... I was expecting to read something like
"rides the currents back to signal to other jellyfish that this is a bad
current", but right now I can't really see the algorithm here.

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subtenante
How to think backwards about nature and science. Jellyfish do not "use" formal
mathematical models. They do stuff. Our mathematical models may be good
approximations of what they do.

