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timhutton

@timhutton@mathstodon.xyz

Senior Scientist at Mixed Reality & AI Lab in Cambridge UK. #ComputerVision, #Fractals, #Geometry, #ArtificialLife, #ArtificialChemistry, Ready (#ReactionDiffusion), Golly (#CellularAutomata). He/him. Previously on Twitter as tim_hutton

It takes a village.

If it doesn't work for everyone it doesn't work at all.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

futurebird , to random
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"We Are Never Ever Ever Ever Getting Back Together"

(via tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/shirtsthatgohard/753656249742229504)

timhutton ,
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@futurebird Terraformers (@annaleen) sequel where the continents are given consciousness so that they can make mountains in the right place, and control their earthquakes and so on. But they end up having their own opinions about which continents they want to collide with, and literally no-one can stop them.

timhutton , to random
@timhutton@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Do all animal's mouths open horizontally?

timhutton OP ,
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@simon (Yay you're here!)

I actually went and looked at some ant pictures before asking. The internet says that ants have a mouth behind the mandibles. But I'm not sure how it works.

timhutton OP ,
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@simon I love that zoologists had to recategorize everything after DNA sequencing was invented, because some species just looked similar but were actually very different in evolutionary history, or vice versa. (E.g. hippos being a kind of whale.)

I guess the body-part congruence question is the same thing, but harder. We'd need a complete mutation history from one species to another to be sure.

timhutton OP ,
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@simon I've just remembered that in humans the 'mandible' is the jaw bone and is actually two bones that fuse in the middle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandibular_symphysis

So now I'm wondering if our jaw is congruent to the ant's mandibles. Wow.

Functionally, in humans the fork and knife held in hands are congruent to the mandibles in ants, and they also work from left and right. (Edit: and I think mandible and hand come from the same Latin root 'manus': e.g. 'manual' means done by hand. But I know zero etymology and zero entomology!)

Paging @futurebird our resident ant expert.

timhutton OP ,
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@futurebird @simon Will humans become eusocial in the far future? Would we be happier? How would you feel?

econads , to random
@econads@mendeddrum.org avatar

Question for @futurebird following a conversation today: can ants get lost?

timhutton ,
@timhutton@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@futurebird @econads One experiment attached little stilts to their legs (or the.. opposite..) and found that this caused them to walk further than normal and thus get lost.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9436-ants-use-pedometers-to-find-home/

futurebird , (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I was going for a “fall of Rome” theme for their outworld but I don’t know if it works. Maybe a statue with broken arms? A charred miniature building?

timhutton ,
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@futurebird "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, half-sunk a shattered visage lies."

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