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UNEXPECTED. "Some mutations that cause damage in the short term ultimately become a positive force in the genetic pedigree of a complex organism." https://lnkd.in/d4b3fY4 View in LinkedIn

INNOCENCE LOST. "The first virus outbreak broke out in 1981 with the ELK CLONER virus, followed by BRAIN in 1986, the first virus to implement stealth techniques, and from then by numerous other viruses." https://lnkd.in/epaSkG4 View in LinkedIn

NOT ALL BAD. "Cohen has tested the proposition that viruses can create useful code in a number of applications." https://lnkd.in/edrARjk View in LinkedIn

EVOLVING. "Computer scientist Fred Cohen also proved that viruses are potentially useful as all-purpose computing devices. As Cohen later put it, "anything a Turing machine can compute, a virus can evolve." https://lnkd.in/edrARjk View in LinkedIn

DEFINITION. "In 1987, Fred Cohen, the pioneer researcher in computer viruses, defined a computer virus to be: “A program that can infect other programs by modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy of itself”. https://lnkd.in/epaSkG4 View in LinkedIn

MISSING THE BOAT. “Animal communication systems have thus far failed to demonstrate anything remotely like our systems of phonology, semantics, and syntax, and the capacity to process even artificially created stimuli is highly limited, often requiring Herculean training efforts.” https://lnkd.in/e576Q3T View in LinkedIn

DYNAMIC LANGUAGE. “Our data show that C. elegans can engage in dynamic tailoring of the ascarosides that it has produced. This dynamic tailoring enables the worm to respond rapidly to changing environmental conditions and modulate the nature of its chemical message without having to synthesize new ascarosides de novo.” https://lnkd.in/dQ48vr2 View in LinkedIn

PREVAILING DOGMA. “There is no evidence for human-like language syntax in any nonhuman species.” (Chomsky) https://lnkd.in/eHTtV3v View in LinkedIn

MORE THAN PHEROMONES. “The nematode C. elegans secretes ascarosides as pheromones to induce development of the dauer larval stage at high population densities, as well as to control various behaviors, including male attraction to hermaphrodites, hermaphrodite attraction to males, avoidance, foraging behavior, and adult aggregation.” https://lnkd.in/dQ48vr2 View in LinkedIn

DARWIN KNEW. Worms have been mapped, counted, weighed, divided into species. We have ground them up to measure their chemistry, poisoned them in the soil to count their numbers, measured their impact on soil turnover, but really, we know next to nothing about this plentiful creature, let alone how to speak worm. But early indications show that they are far more complex than anyone ever thought, except Darwin (in his 1881 book, The formation of Vegetable Mould by the Action of Worms). https://lnkd.in/exyGWjD View in LinkedIn