How a dragonfly's brain is designed to kill | DIY Neuroscience, a TED series 

Me cookies and ice cream

loool 😂

😂🤣😂😆 So unexpected & I so needed that TY!

And republican voters are working with only two neurons. One for denying evolution and the other for using a book of fairytales to guide their existence.

Henry TheGreatAmerican i would say 60% of the Republicans

Well when I was a child I loved to go into the woods to play and somehow I found a small pond with like 100+ dragonflies while I was running and I'm not sure If I got attacked or scared them but It was terrifying being in the middle of a cloud of insects.😭😭😭😭

Not truly an apex predator, as while fast there is a few creatures that eat them. But they’re close.

Apex to anything smaller than them.

No no no lol. 🤮🤮🤮🤮

mcm1322 he’s going places clearly

Le gamin est le prochain à se faire planter des aiguilles de métal dans son crâne d'ado... pour voir si il a un cerveau ou de la 💩 à la place !! 😂😂

Probably her son

Love how they gave him a title.

Ey man, when I was a kid, I used to cut grass for a couple of bucks and if I had a choice I'd pick hunting bugs instead.

Or keep him to eat any flies that get into your home. That's my plan on those days in the summer when I'm having a party and the kids keep leaving the sliding glass door open

This comment made my day lolol

They don't have the capacity to think. You would need to hold a fly in the doorway lol

Only 16 neurons insanely fast, but not smart,

Because they're not "smart", they just have precise reflexes to help them catch flies. I wonder if hanging a small black object from an open window would cause it to fly through trying to catch it.

Haha thanks for this, I see it now😂

Damsel flies are the ones that eat mesquitos

@@elliottjames671 LIAR! flies only eat trash and decomposed bodies.

@@dr.snowman4883 Damselflies are close relatives to dragonflies and predatory by nature. Both groups of insects hunt mosquitoes, flies, mayflies, butterflies, moths, and even other dragonflies and damselflies sometimes. They pretty much hunt every small flying insect in their territory.

@@wojrb4872 lol there like us...

@@dr.snowman4883 damsel flys they look like smaller dragonflies

I call hacks

I wish I had a biological aimbot :(

It's tpp they have a 360 view

What about the hummingbird

FOV = 9000

Draeas Talonsbane It’s definitely not just you, I just came to comments to see if anyone noticed it. Looks like they did

Yes she seemed disturbed by him doing the test, her body language suggest she was highly uncomfortable. I wonder what happened.

That's a bit rude mate, for all we know they changed the agreed plans where she was going to demonstrate or something else happened off camera that made her upset/comfortable. Before that point she was doing great.

I was bothered by most the actual male presentator in this video, and even he did a good job. Who knows, maybe they promised some participation or an interesting job but then only left her sitting in a corner so that "look guys we have an expert". We have absolutely no way of knowing what is behind the scenes and I don't think it's right to call a witch hunt on her or anybody in this. ps. I think she's also pretty.

I'm not sure if pissed off is the right way to put that. There's definitely some discomfort or irritation in her body language but it's an odd environment to be in and the experiment itself sounds really frustrating. If you look at one of their posts on the website (written by her I think) there's a description of the process and some its issues: blog.backyardbrains.com/2017/08/finalizing-a-no-harm-dragonfly-visual-neuron-recording-prep/ . There was a part where she discussed moving the stimulus by hand and developing an automated rig which ran into a bunch of problems. In my mind the whole thing implied that it probably took a very long time to get any response worth using for the video, possibly many hours of sitting in front of the camera, re-anesthetizing the dragon fly, starting narration then redoing the whole thing when the response just looks like noise or the electrode popped out of place. So it's pretty hard to imagine someone sitting still making engaging contact with the camera for the entirety of the shots, considering they have no idea when they'll get one that's usable. Beyond that if getting a good enough response on camera is rare enough to be a nuisance they probably didn't want to go through that whole process just to refilm the magical 10 seconds for the sole sake of having a more camera ready appearance. That's the problem with filming science being done in real time, it gets frustrating and it's terribly hard to predict when it'll go without errors. Much easier to be camera ready when what's being filmed doesn't rely on random events going just right.

lmfao

Yeah, there is a procedure for it. First it needs to pass the written test followed by a physical test. After that we give training for the top 3 dragon flies for next Marvel movies. LoL

Neuronless

Your*

Chem Hung fyi.. I was hiking in high cascades mountains this summer and ended up at tiny remote lake with giant blue fireflies that kept circling me. almost aggressive, or maybe never seen human? idk but they were big enough to mistake for Baby hummingbird. seriously !

Violet Fyxe thanks dude

No. Back in the olden days Dragon flies would eat the bugs that bothered Dragons. They also talked to the dragon and witches apparently. Of course they dont have anything to do with dragons Dragons never existed FFS

Devil May Flies

+ Dennis Cat Sea dragons are called 'sea dragons' because they look like dragons.

[citation needed]

😂 Exactly what I was thinking!

Or potentially a small human

@@maxz4830 Fossils?

Well back then, elephants were the size of blue whales

@@tt_the_blackout7133 well back then Blue wales were the size of your mom, ohhhhhh boiiii....jk xD

yeah, she seemed kinda disturbed/anxious. i was wondering why.

He tries to steal her thunder

she looks like a jealous child who is told to let her brother play with a toy, while she has to wait until he has finished.

actually, her entire area of study is a mockery 😂

SUPER LABINE and what do you for a living? I bet it's something not significant.

I used to watch my pet mantis eat and it was horrifying

She is going to regret that for as long as she lives.

Shes rubbing her fingers together alot which could indicate that she's stressed or uncomfortable.

That's called rolling upwards...

Nope, she actually looked up while controlling the pervy thought that crossed all of our minds.

She seemed very disinterested for that part right?

And right after that, they edit out her eyes lol

@@iamlibra3014159 ahahah right

GDC I get the impression that this guy is just incredibly irritating to be around

True

I love them, as i love all my children

What about butterflies, though?

@@Benimation Butterflies are scary 🙁

Yeah, when you think about it, they're basically caterpillars with wings.

@@Benimation Actually I'm scared of them because of a bad dream I had when I was about eight 😅. Butterflies came to my house and killed my family in this dream.

🤘

@@wondersofivan2338 shaka brah

Yeah, that was beyond terrible, honestly

Have you tried restarting your dragonfly?

+Giorgos D I did but then it died on me... get it? cause it was alive? ... I will go outside again...

tony huckip in my language we call them λιβελουλα/λιβελουλες (plural), pronounced like and originates from Latin libellula (with a v instead of b). Lib as in library because their bodies look like scrolls or something.

Namaste!

We used to call them helicopters as kids too :)

Trollslända

In Russian "стрекоза" /stri:kaza/ )) We (me and my brother) used to play with them when we were children.

that was just self- defense . adults dont kill eachothers , the aggression was meant for the one who was holding their wings

​@@wondersofivan2338 no it's nothing to do with self defense yes they will do it when it's time to mate but they are cannibals and have been known to eat smaller dragonflies

they just didn't perceive you as alive, else they would have ran away. most likely mistook you for a tree or something

I had a lot of dragonflies here, so there was a lot in my childhood. I saw they toooooo aggressive, they move soo fast, always going around you... Wondering if they were after me ( I feel like a pray, they look like little assassins, was really scary :c)

Lol

They are aggressive to prey. They showed how they process prey in the video - you would be part of the landscape, not lunch.

How on Earth would a dragonfly murder you?

Revenge

I DOnt ThinK sO

Maybe there was a fly on your face, a forefly!

It has 16 neurons soooo... Yep.

Bro Pru you probably broke its wings or something

uhh its a dragon so...

They're freaky when they are Larvae. They crawl around under water eating every little living thing in sight.

@@cula4083 yes that's right but I also think that the targeting mechanism is more complicated than this. Maybe this 16 neurons are an essential part of it but definitely not all.

And also very interesting -- HOW did they build in this thin wire in axon? Nothing said about it. Silence.

We still have several reflexes, some triggered by our visual system. The reason that our eyes don't have direct connections to our limbs is probably that we are larger than dragonflies.

Elon knows all, Elon made all.

Elon would transform them into killer robot

But you cannot defy your creator.

Most flying insects "slow down time" so, it really is how dragonflies are engineered... ability to course correct on a dime, even fly straight up, down or even backwards with little effort!, and those freaking eyes that see almost everything. and don't forget those mandibles, I mean they hunt bees!!!!!

When you completely miss the point of the video

r/woooosh

Just Jake when you completly miss the joke

They evolved L5N mutations :)

Thats so true ..

It seems everyone is getting that impression.

The theory of evolution

Yeah.... Out of all the creatures in the animal kingdom the dragonfly is the #1 assassins/hunters

I love my little predators, don't you love how they murder those flies?

ZDY Now you're talking! 😜

It actually comes down to an O2 problem, there was much more oxygen in the Paleozoic era. The increase in O2 led to monstrous insects, centipedes and Dragonflies.

Aeoster Neil deGrasse Tyson mentioned this in one of his episodes of COSMOS Spacetime Odyssey.

Funny thing is, it has actually been done before. Google 'HIGH OXYGEN LEVELS SPAWN MONSTER DRAGONFLIES'. There's an article on it by Wired :)

Just let them grow up in a high oxygen environment.

Aimbot OP.

haha

hmm...

Yes. There are studies where oxygen rich environments caused size increases in insects. I’m not sure if it generalizes to dragon flies, or what the cap on size increases is, but search the study!

@@grantbanfill1117 Thats interesting gonna look this up 🤔

You sound like a supervillain

1: the dragonfly was numbed with cold before fastening it down. 2: insects likely don't feel pain.

@cypher_dragon_123 You should not be so sure about insects not feeling pain. I think it is likely that insects feel at least something equivalent to pain: "Given our lack of understanding of how higher-order nociception is processed in invertebrates, as well as the brain architecture required to experience pain, we cannot be sure that insects do not feel pain." (Adamo 2016) Check: doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.05.005

@@cyber_dragon_123 insects do feel pain or else they wouldnt try to escape predator attacks

@@wondersofivan2338 or they don't wanna die, maybe... That sounds reasonable...right? Also, it's not like they killed the dragon fly. Also the whole pain thing, it's like pain but without feeling. They can tell their body is damaged without looking at it but do not feel it, of course this varies. Btw if y'all are so concerned about a lil dragon fly being handled with care for a better understanding of the whole species why don't you go help the several tarantula species slowly being wiped out... or do spiders not have feelings? Anyway this was a cool video.

Whining about "political brainwashing" on TED and watching Alex Jones. What a hypocrit.

Though it IS brainwashing. It says that the dragonfly has 16 neurons, though even the simplest jellyfish have thousands of neurons and dragonflies are a lot more complex. For example, fruit flies have 250 000 neurons. And it is just one of the many facts they got wrong in this video. EDIT: I am wrong, read below. While dragonfly has more than 16 neurons, 16 neurons is the number of neurons that control the wings when hunting prey.

@@techma82 thanks for the enlightenment but i would argue that being wrong is not as bad as political brainwashing. Still though one would and should expect TED to have a higher standard when it comes to truthful scientific data but i still wouldnt call it brainwashing but feel free to disagree i love to learn and getting proved wrong is the best way to do so

@@techma82 uhm it doesn't sound extremely unplausible,look im no expert but a quick google search says that a roundworm has 200 neurons total..you just happened to pick jellyfishes who are famous for having a ton of neurons that act as an integrated nervous system (to make up for the lack of a brain)

Firstly, they said they have 16 neurons that connect the eyes to the individual wing motility. Stop trying to act smart when you can't even be bothered to do some basic reading comprehension.

...the moment she realized what?

"aww yes!"

@@globin3477 ....that the answer is 42.

Well, but they still attack birds! Have seen it myself many times!

that was not the point of the experiment. they wanted to demonstrate that larger objects aren't reflexively perceived as prey. if a dragonfly wanted to attack a bird it would need to make concious effort to do so, and it's reflexes wouldn't help it

Tom Riddle Let me get this cleared out, you are positive that you have seen a dragon fly attack a bird which is orders of magnitude larger?

@@XenoContact Yes it attacks birds that are many times larger!

Please don’t use the word ‘evolved’ in this context, as that implies there was an explosion of nothing that made it over trillions of years by chance. Designed is the word you’re looking for.

@@stephenburdette2464 an explosion of nothing? What are you even talking about... Also yes, random chance of mutation is exactly how evolution works.

RubsNL People can use whatever word they want.

Not all scientists believe in evolution so he is free to express it based on his context

Just a thought for y’all, who gets to tell the God who created this earth that He can’t use evolution to make His creations? If God is omnipotent, then He would know enough to be able to make the ancestors to today’s critters and just let evolution do the hard work for Him. Work smarter, not harder.

They dont have a sense of pain like you or I would relate to so get your panties out of a bunch and go virtue signal somewhere else

The electrodes sit on the skin, the insect isn't harmed in the experiment