In a Scientific American column delightfully named “The Artful Amoeba” there is an article on a little critter called the “fire chaser” beetle: How a Half-Inch Beetle Finds Fires 80 Miles Away – Fire chaser beetles’ ability to sense heat borders on the spooky
Fire chaser beetles are thus so hell bent on that objective that they have been known to bite firefighters, mistaking them, perhaps, for unusually squishy and unpleasant-smelling trees.
This part is interesting:
But the beetle has a good reason. It’s getting its legs out of the way of its heat eyes, pits filled with infrared sensors tucked just behind its legs.
A strategy suggested by the fire beetle life cycle is if you want to maximize a signal to noise ratio, iterate through three simple things:
- Work to develop a super well defined signal/goal/objective.
- Remove every possible barrier to receiving information about that signal – mental, emotional, even physical – that you can think of or that you discover over time.
- Repeat
Also, the “Way of the Amoeba” is now the “Way of the Artful Amoeba.” Update your phrase books accordingly.