[intimidated]

> Going further, the researchers removed visual neurons from the box jellyfish and studied them in a dish. The cells were shown striped images while receiving a small electrical pulse to represent collision. Within about five minutes, the cells started sending the signal that would cause a whole box jellyfish to turn around.

> “It’s amazing to see how fast they learn,” said Jan Bielecki a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Physiology at Kiel University in Germany, also an author of the paper.

Could someone please explain this bombshell?

Did visual neurons learn all by themselves in a dish? And how did the researchers know that the visual neurons would interpret "a small electrical pulse" as a collision? (I'm surprised visual neurons "know" what a collision is.)

[kmarc]

> interpret "a small electrical pulse" as a collision

They don't interpret as a collision. IIUC current models of instinctive behaviors and learning are built up from the assumptions that

* if a source of event is "beneficial" (from a chemical, physical perspective, eg "food" / energy packet is there) then those cells, neurons, microorganisms are naturally selected which tend to approach / follow / capture that source

* if a source of event is non beneficial (threat / chemical incompatibility etc) then those survive which avoid that source.

Here it doesn't matter that the negative event is a "collision", eventually the organism('s building blocks) learn to avoid it.