Saturday, May 3, 2014

Life imitates Far Side Cartoons

Praying mantids have depth perception, based on each eye seeing slightly different images, an ability they require for their remarkable facility on bicycles. Of course this is a 1986 observation and old news for the usual crowd at the Old Entomologist, where it inspires the monthly "Magic-Eye Autostereograms for Anthropods" competition.

It is not known which algorithm they use in their little insect neural ganglia for the computation disparities. It may be the classic Marr-Poggio iterative / cooperative algorithm from 1976. Marr and Poggio originally designed this for perceiving the separate layers of wedding cakes. Trufax!
Anyway, here are some scientists making dinky little polarised-filter glasses for praying mantids and showing them 3D movies. It turns out that the movie has to feature an appropriate subject and plot, like maybe a giant female mantis who eats humans and is totally hawt, otherwise the subjects describe the 3D experience as a 'gimmick' and not worth the extra $6. Research continues into how much extra they are willing to pay for Sensurround sound, high-frame-rate, and Odorama.

The spiders are feeling left out of this research, but I don't know what they have to complain about, they still get all the best drugs. Also they are not called upon to squirt out egg-cases half the size of their abdomens and shaped like Lego blocks.

11 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

Did the guy w/ the pitchfork heave that juicy steak at the mantid in hope he could outrun the steak, or was he just keeping it under his hat until it flew off?

egg-cases half the size of their abdomens and shaped like Lego blocks
But it feels soooo good when it's out!

Smut Clyde said...

"Juicy steak"? That is of course a giant ear attached to the haystack.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

I dig those mantis glasses... will we now see mantids forming New Wave bands?

Dave Trampier FTW!

tigris said...

The problem with testing mantids is they sense your antics, but they can't help it: they've been too frantic too long.

Smut Clyde said...

will we now see mantids forming New Wave bands?

New Romantids. Duh.

OBS said...

will we now see mantids forming New Wave bands?

They're probably just jealous of Adam Ant.

A Spider from Mars said...

Your music sucks and your band is lame.

Sirius Lunacy said...

I saw Mantid as Anything live in concert. Awesome female vocalist. And just when the show reached it's climax she bit the head off of a live male praying mantis!

Lawnguylander said...

I saw the Replacemantids, (the Mantes, we called them) that the Ritz when they didn't even have functional genitalia yet and were still barely 15% bicycle.

M. Krebs said...

I wouldn't call it new wave, but http://youtu.be/3VOwoWlyDpE

M. Krebs said...

Better: http://youtu.be/lxGB12mbFSg