badbrainstorm

Sciencedaily.com

A paper recently published in Nature Energy based on pioneering research done at Illinois Institute of Technology reveals a promising breakthrough in green energy: an electrolyzer device capable of converting carbon dioxide into propane in a manner that is both scalable and economically viable.

As the United States races toward its target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, innovative methods to reduce the significant carbon dioxide emissions from electric power and industrial sectors are critical. Mohammad Asadi, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Illinois Tech, spearheaded this groundbreaking research.

"Making renewable chemical manufacturing is really important," says Asadi. "It's the best way to close the carbon cycle without losing the chemicals we currently use daily."

What sets Asadi's electrolyzer apart is its unique catalytic system. It uses inexpensive, readily available materials to produce tri-carbon molecules -- fundamental building blocks for fuels like propane, which is used for purposes ranging from home heating to aviation.

To ensure a deep understanding of the catalyst's operations, the team employed a combination of experimental and computational methods. This rigorous approach illuminated the crucial elements influencing the catalyst's reaction activity, selectivity, and stability.

A distinctive feature of this technology, lending to its commercial viability, is the implementation of a flow electrolyzer. This design permits continuous propane production, sidestepping the pitfalls of the more conventional batch processing methods.

"Designing and engineering this laboratory-scale flow electrolyzer prototype has demonstrated Illinois Tech's commitment to creating innovative technologies. Optimizing and scaling up this prototype will be an important step toward producing a sustainable, economically viable, and energy-efficient carbon capture and utilization process," says Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Program Director Jack Lewnard.

This innovation is not Asadi's first venture into sustainable energy. He previously adapted a version of this catalyst to produce ethanol by harnessing carbon dioxide from industrial waste gas. Recognizing the potential of the green propane technology, Asadi has collaborated with global propane distributor SHV Energy to further scale and disseminate the system.

"This is an exciting development which opens up a new e-fuel pathway to on-purpose propane production for the benefit of global users of this essential fuel," says Keith Simons, head of research and development for sustainable fuels at SHV Energy.

Illinois Tech Duchossois Leadership Professor and Professor of Physics Carlo Segre, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Andrew Rappe, and University of Illinois Chicago Professor Reza Shahbazian-Yassar contributed to this work. Mohammadreza Esmaeilirad (Ph.D. CHE '22) was a lead author on the paper.

I was gonna submit a pull request, but I see they say no new feature request rn with big changes coming.

Just wanting to throw out there my wish for a new feature.

I like the current ability to switch from video to audio, so would like that to stay the same

But I'd love to be able to set it to a default codec option for each.

It's a pain to have to always have to switch it to those free as in freedom codecs everytime

sciencedaily.com

When photosynthetic cells absorb light from the sun, packets of energy called photons leap between a series of light-harvesting proteins until they reach the photosynthetic reaction center. There, cells convert the energy into electrons, which eventually power the production of sugar molecules.

This transfer of energy through the light-harvesting complex occurs with extremely high efficiency: Nearly every photon of light absorbed generates an electron, a phenomenon known as near-unity quantum efficiency.

A new study from MIT chemists offers a potential explanation for how proteins of the light-harvesting complex, also called the antenna, achieve that high efficiency. For the first time, the researchers were able to measure the energy transfer between light-harvesting proteins, allowing them to discover that the disorganized arrangement of these proteins boosts the efficiency of the energy transduction.

"In order for that antenna to work, you need long-distance energy transduction. Our key finding is that the disordered organization of the light-harvesting proteins enhances the efficiency of that long-distance energy transduction," says Gabriela Schlau-Cohen, an associate professor of chemistry at MIT and the senior author of the new study.

MIT postdocs Dihao Wang and Dvir Harris and former MIT graduate student Olivia Fiebig PhD '22 are the lead authors of the paper, which will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jianshu Cao, an MIT professor of chemistry, is also an author of the paper.

Energy capture

For this study, the MIT team focused on purple bacteria, which are often found in oxygen-poor aquatic environments and are commonly used as a model for studies of photosynthetic light-harvesting.

Within these cells, captured photons travel through light-harvesting complexes consisting of proteins and light-absorbing pigments such as chlorophyll. Using ultrafast spectroscopy, a technique that uses extremely short laser pulses to study events that happen on timescales of femtoseconds to nanoseconds, scientists have been able to study how energy moves within a single one of these proteins. However, studying how energy travels between these proteins has proven much more challenging because it requires positioning multiple proteins in a controlled way.

To create an experimental setup where they could measure how energy travels between two proteins, the MIT team designed synthetic nanoscale membranes with a composition similar to those of naturally occurring cell membranes. By controlling the size of these membranes, known as nanodiscs, they were able to control the distance between two proteins embedded within the discs.

For this study, the researchers embedded two versions of the primary light-harvesting protein found in purple bacteria, known as LH2 and LH3, into their nanodiscs. LH2 is the protein that is present during normal light conditions, and LH3 is a variant that is usually expressed only during low light conditions.

Using the cryo-electron microscope at the MIT.nano facility, the researchers could image their membrane-embedded proteins and show that they were positioned at distances similar to those seen in the native membrane. They were also able to measure the distances between the light-harvesting proteins, which were on the scale of 2.5 to 3 nanometers.

Disordered is better

Because LH2 and LH3 absorb slightly different wavelengths of light, it is possible to use ultrafast spectroscopy to observe the energy transfer between them. For proteins spaced closely together, the researchers found that it takes about 6 picoseconds for a photon of energy to travel between them. For proteins farther apart, the transfer takes up to 15 picoseconds.

Faster travel translates to more efficient energy transfer, because the longer the journey takes, the more energy is lost during the transfer.

"When a photon gets absorbed, you only have so long before that energy gets lost through unwanted processes such as nonradiative decay, so the faster it can get converted, the more efficient it will be," Schlau-Cohen says.

The researchers also found that proteins arranged in a lattice structure showed less efficient energy transfer than proteins that were arranged in randomly organized structures, as they usually are in living cells.

"Ordered organization is actually less efficient than the disordered organization of biology, which we think is really interesting because biology tends to be disordered. This finding tells us that that may not just be an inevitable downside of biology, but organisms may have evolved to take advantage of it," Schlau-Cohen says.

Now that they have established the ability to measure inter-protein energy transfer, the researchers plan to explore energy transfer between other proteins, such as the transfer between proteins of the antenna to proteins of the reaction center. They also plan to study energy transfer between antenna proteins found in organisms other than purple bacteria, such as green plants.

The research was funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Energy.

It's easy to feel like we won't win the fight against climate change, especially when faced with the realities of a warming planet and the ongoing issue of climate science misinformation.

Climate change is happening, though. Look no further than the Earth's increasingly devastating natural disasters, looming water crisis, and disappearing ice sheets.

To combat warming temperatures we have to dramatically lower carbon emissions, according to the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and address the rising levels of carbon dioxide. That won't be easy(opens in a new tab).

At the 2022 Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), world leaders chose not to move away decisively from a widespread reliance on fossil fuels(opens in a new tab) and posed continued concerns about failures to lower emissions. The 2022 Emissions Gap Report(opens in a new tab), released by the UN Environment Programme just before COP27, still found that there was "no credible pathway to a 1.5 C future" without "rapid societal transformation."

"Limiting warming to 1.5 C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics, but doing so would require unprecedented changes," Jim Skea, a leading UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist, said in 2018.

But there is cause for hope, Charlie Jiang, a former climate campaigner at Greenpeace, told Mashable in 2019. Greenpeace climate campaigners work with climate change advocacy organizations such as Zero Hour(opens in a new tab) to confront fossil fuel companies and politicians standing in the way of transformative climate change action. One of Greenpeace's strategies has been to pressure political candidates to publish comprehensive (opens in a new tab)plans(opens in a new tab) that invest in clean energy and phase out fossil fuels, without hurting workers.

President Joe Biden has since made several climate action pledges(opens in a new tab), including co-leading the Forest and Climate Leaders' Partnership (FCLP) deforestation initiative, scaling up production and use of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), and a $1-billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund(opens in a new tab). The administration also set a new goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.

"Amidst all the scary news that we're getting, it's a hopeful moment for bold transformation... We deserve a better future than the one that our complacent politicians and the fossil-fuel billionaires are handing to us," Jiang said.

Here's how you can join the tide against the climate crisis.

1. Get involved in climate change strikes

Uniting together across demographics can be one of the most impactful strategies in the fight to stop the effects of climate change, Jiang said.

And climate protests have long been used to call attention to growing climate issues, bad actors, and environmental threats.

Global Climate Strike(opens in a new tab) is an annual, international strike to call attention to the need for international leaders to take the climate crisis seriously. It's part of the weekly protest initiative Fridays for the Future(opens in a new tab), founded by youth climate activist Greta Thunberg, and its annual Global Day Of Climate Action.

You can find a protest near you by visiting the websites for Fridays for the Future, the U.S. Youth Climate Strike Coalition(opens in a new tab), or the Global Climate Strike(opens in a new tab).

If you want to take further action, the Global Climate Strike website offers a wealth of resources(opens in a new tab) including tips to promote the strike on social media and graphics for posters, flyers, and buttons. It even has toolkits that specific groups like employees or faith-based groups can use to encourage others to join.

If you want to take part but can't find a strike or protest where you live, the U.S. Youth Climate Strike Coalition has a comprehensive document(opens in a new tab) that anyone looking to organize their own climate change protest on Fridays can use. The Global Climate Strike offers similar resources(opens in a new tab). You can also use these teachings to plan future strikes throughout the year. For additional inspiration, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Climate Protest Tracker(opens in a new tab) also tracks international climate actions and their participants, objectives, and outcomes.
2. Advocate for inclusive climate solutions

Climate activists can expand their approach by considering how environmental preservation — and climate philanthropy — operate alongside the Indigenous communities that have fought to retain stewardship of the land over centuries of colonization.

Some are now turning towards Indigenous-led solutions to environmental degradation, climate change, and the impact of extractive industries like logging and fossil fuels, and government leaders are creating more pathways(opens in a new tab) for these communities to be on the frontlines of the climate movement.

In the nonprofit space, organizations like the Decolonizing Wealth Project(opens in a new tab), a grassroots community of funders offering untethered money to Indigenous-led organizations, and Indigenous Climate Action(opens in a new tab) are fostering a more inclusive environmental movement.

To learn more about these Indigenous climate initiatives and get involved with their work, visit the Decolonizing Wealth Project's Indigenous Earth Fund(opens in a new tab). 3. Research politicians' voting history

Knowing elected officials' track records helps you make an informed vote during elections. And avoid voting a climate denier into office.

The nonpartisan research organization Vote Smart(opens in a new tab) provides information on the voting records, policy positions, and funding behind candidates and elected officials.

During state and local races, check out Vote411(opens in a new tab)'s voter and ballot guides(opens in a new tab), which contain information about ballot measures, as well as current candidates' positions on a variety of issues. You can also see candidates answer questions about topics important to them and your community, so you can note if they prioritize climate change in their answers.

The League of Conservation Voters(opens in a new tab), an organization that advocates for environmental laws and works to elect pro-environmental candidates(opens in a new tab), scores(opens in a new tab) Congress members on their environmental records and assigns both the House and the Senate an average rating.

Apps like ReleVote(opens in a new tab) can also help you keep track of your representatives' congressional decisions, as well as monitor relevant climate and environmental legislation.
4. Speak to elected officials

Beyond voting, you also can talk to elected officials about the specific climate change issues you care about and how you'd like to see them addressed, as a constituent.

For example, carbon-pricing bills(opens in a new tab) place a fee on carbon and, in some cases, other fossil fuels, to encourage sustainable energy alternatives and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Cities or states can also mandate that a certain percentage of their energy comes from carbon-free sources, like New York's ambitious OneNYC climate plan(opens in a new tab).

Look to see if your state or local government is considering bills like these and contact the appropriate politician to let them know why you support it. Nonprofit research institute Resources for the Future(opens in a new tab) also hosts a carbon pricing bill tracker(opens in a new tab) that monitors current legislation.

Calling representatives can be impactful as well, and it's easy to find politicians' contact information with a quick Google search.

"If they [a state lawmaker] receive five calls in a day about a single issue, that is an avalanche of calls," says Jamie DeMarco, former member of the environmental grassroots organization Citizens' Climate Lobby(opens in a new tab) (CCL) and Maryland Director at Chesapeake Climate Action Network. " "We need everyone taking action to demand our leaders commit to stand up to the fossil fuel industry." "

The key is to band together with others to more easily deluge a politician's office with calls, he said.

If you prefer speaking with congressional members in person, CCL trains people to lobby their senators and representatives on climate change, both in D.C. and in volunteers' home states. Volunteers speak with congressional members face-to-face about bills they want the representatives to support. This might seem radical but can be very effective, said Steve Valk, CCL's communications director.

If you're interested in joining this effort, you can find a CCL chapter in your area(opens in a new tab).

Check if your state has an office, commission, or committee that focuses on climate change and if the public can attend. You can also go to congressional members' town hall meetings. Usually there's time for the audience to express their concerns and ask questions, Valk said.

Ultimately, the world needs us to get involved, activists emphasize.

"We need everyone taking action to demand our leaders commit to stand up to the fossil fuel industry," Jiang said.

Originally published in September 2019, this story was updated with new information in July 2023. Additional reporting by Chase DiBenedetto.

Source

Links: [mashable](https://mashable.com/article/wildfire-smoke-nyc-canada-video mashable2 Mashable3) Report zerohour.org/ Vox Whitehouse.gov Green climate fund strikewithus.org https://globalclimatestrike.net/ Google doc climate-protest-tracker native-solutions-climate-change decolonizingwealth indigenousclimateaction https://decolonizingwealth.com/liberated-capital/ief/ votesmart.org vote411.org vote411.org/ballot https://www.lcv.org/ relevote.com/ citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-pricing-congress Resources for the Future carbon-pricing-bill-tracker

An octopus captured on camera during recent deep sea expedition.

An octopus captured on camera during a recent deep sea expedition. Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute

Scientists just explored the realm of octopi. They returned with discoveries.

On a deep sea expedition off of Costa Rica, researchers used a robotic submersible to capture footage of previously unexplored seamounts, finding them teeming with almost otherworldly life. The mission, led by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, an organization that researches the seas, visited a little-seen octopus nursery — where groups of female octopi gather and guard their valuable eggs.

The explorers also found an entirely new octopus nursery, just the third known to science.

"The discovery of a new active octopus nursery over 2,800 meters [over 9,000 feet] beneath the sea surface in Costa Rican waters proves there is still so much to learn about our ocean," Schmidt Ocean Institute executive director Jyotika Virmani, an oceanographer, said in a statement.

Peering into the uncharted depths often returns discoveries or unparalleled footage of an underwater world that's still quite alien to us. "We know so little about the deep ocean that pretty much anyone can find something new if they were doing something unique down there," Alan Leonardi, the former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, previously told Mashable.

Interestingly, the newly found nursery, shown in the June 2023 images below, is near a low-temperature [hydrothermal vent, a place where hot or warm mineral-rich seawater flows from Earth's crust. This suggests some octopus species intentionally brood their eggs around these vents. (Another octopus nursery called the Dorado Outcrop nursery also dwells near a vent, and researchers even observed hatching there.)

The recently found octopi could be a new species of Muusoctopus, an octopus species with no ink sac.

In a newly discovered octopus nursery, members of an octopus species guard their eggs.

In a newly discovered octopus nursery, members of an octopus species guard their eggs. Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute

More newfound octopi in a deep sea nursery.

More newfound octopi in a deep sea nursery. Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute

Overall, the expedition spotted hundreds of other deep ocean critters, which are adapted to the cold depths and darkness. Below is a three-minute video of these animals, followed by an image of curious tripod fish.

Two tripod fish spotted nearly 10,000 feet under the ocean surface.

Two tripod fish spotted nearly 10,000 feet under the ocean surface. Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute

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A primary goal of such expeditions is to document what's down there, especially because most of the deep sea is unprotected. For example, these recently explored seamounts are unprotected from human activity, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute. As of now, the laws governing deep sea mining — a developing, looming industry — are woefully outdated. They were established in 1975, but the first deep sea hydrothermal vents(opens in a new tab), and the life they support, weren't discovered until 1977.

The deep seas clearly hold bounties of biodiversity and life, along with great medicinal potential for our species. "Systematic searches for new drugs have shown that marine invertebrates produce more antibiotic, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory substances than any group of terrestrial organisms," notes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(opens in a new tab).

These deep sea expeditions, then, do more than document wonder. They could play a vital role in protecting some of Earth's rare and invaluable ecosystems.

Mark is an award-winning journalist and the science editor at Mashable. After communicating science as a ranger with the National Park Service, he began a reporting career after seeing the extraordinary value in educating the public about the happenings in earth sciences, space, biodiversity, health, and beyond. source

Some jobs suck because they’re just not what you want to be doing; others suck because the workplace culture itself is a mess. It can be hard to tell if your workplace is toxic or if you just really hate it for your own reasons, but there are ways to parse it out. What every workplace should have

Per the U.S. Surgeon General, for optimal worker mental health and well-being, a workplace must have these five essentials:

• Protection from harm, both physical and mental: This means workplaces provide support that focuses on mental health, give you enough time to rest, prioritize your safety on the job, and make the environment safe and welcoming for everyone.
• Connection and community: A workplace should create inclusive cultures that enable workers to form trusting relationships and collaborate with one another.
• Work-life harmony: Workplaces with work-life harmony give employees some autonomy over how work is completed, offer flexible and predictable schedules, and respect the boundary between on- and off-hours. They also provide paid leave.
• A feeling of mattering at work: Employees should feel like they matter at their job, not like they’re just disposable laborers. To do this, companies should offer a living wage, involve workers in decisions, and recognize good work.
• Opportunities for growth: Finally, employees will have better well-being if they’re given opportunities to grow in their careers, whether through training and education or mentoring. There should be clear, equitable pathways for advancement laid out and feedback given on work.

The Surgeon General came up with this framework after some grim statistics came from the pandemic: 76% of U.S. workers reported at least one mental health condition symptom in 2021, which was up 17% from two years prior, and 84% said they had encountered at least one factor in their workplace that had a negative impact on their mental health. How your job stacks up

The five essentials are a great framework from which you can inspect your own company. If it provides safety, connection, work-life harmony, a feeling that you matter, and opportunities for growth, it’s meeting the benchmarks of not being toxic—but if you still dislike it or feel it draining you, it might be time to switch jobs.

You don’t have to wait around for the right gig to fall in your lap. Research companies in your chosen field that meet those five requirements (Glassdoor and other employee review sites are great for this) and then send them a letter of interest. During any interviews, keep the five requirements top of mind and ask direct questions about how any potential new employer meets them. source

Cuttlefish, along with other cephalopods like octopus and squid, are masters of disguise, changing their skin color and texture to blend in with their underwater surroundings.

Now, in a study published 28 June in Nature, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research have shown that the way cuttlefish generate their camouflage pattern is much more complex than previously believed.

Cuttlefish create their dazzling skin patterns by precisely controlling millions of tiny skin pigment cells, called chromatophores. Each chromatophore is surrounded by a set of muscles, which contract and relax under direct control of neurons in the brain. When the muscles contract, the pigment cell is expanded and when they relax, the pigment cell is hidden. Together, the chromatophores act like cellular pixels to generate the overall skin pattern.

Professor Sam Reiter, who leads the Computational Neuroethology Unit at OIST said: "Prior research suggested that cuttlefish only had a limited selection of pattern components that they would use to achieve the best match against the environment. But our latest research has shown that their camouflaging response is much more complicated and flexible -- we just hadn't been able to detect it as previous approaches were not as detailed or quantitative."

To make their discovery, the team used an array of ultra high-resolution cameras to zoom into the skin of the common European cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis. The scientists presented the cuttlefish with a range of different backgrounds. As the cuttlefish transitioned between camouflage patterns, the cameras captured the real-time expansion and contraction of tens to hundreds of thousands of chromatophores.

Data from around 200,000 skin pattern images were then crunched by the supercomputer at OIST and analyzed by a type of artificial intelligence, known as a neural network. The neural network looked holistically at the different elements of the skin pattern images, including roughness, brightness, structure, shape, contrast, and more complex image features. Each pattern was then placed into a specific location in 'skin pattern space', a term the scientists coined to describe the full spectrum of skin patterns generated by the cuttlefish.

The researchers also used the same process to analyze images of the background environment, and looked at how well the skin patterns matched the environment.

Overall, the researchers found that the cuttlefish were able to display a rich variety of skin patterns and could sensitively and flexibly change their skin pattern to match both natural and artificial backgrounds. When the same animal was presented with the same background multiple times, the resulting skin patterns subtly differed in ways that were indistinguishable to the human eye.

The path that the cuttlefish took to reach each skin pattern was indirect. The cuttlefish transitioned through a range of different skin patterns, pausing in between, with each pattern change improving the camouflage until the cuttlefish stabilized on a pattern they seemed satisfied with. Such paths, even between the same two backgrounds, were never the same, emphasizing the complexity of the cuttlefish's behavior.

"The cuttlefish would often overshoot their target skin pattern, pause, and then come back," said Theodosia Woo, joint first author of the study and graduate student in the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research team. "In other words, cuttlefish don't simply detect the background and go straight to a set pattern, instead, it is likely that they continuously receive feedback about their skin pattern and use it to adjust their camouflage. Exactly how they receive that feedback -- whether they use their eyes, or whether they have a sense of how contracted the muscles around each chromatophore are -- we don't yet know."

The researchers also examined another skin pattern display, called blanching, which occurs when cuttlefish turn pale in response to a threat. "Unlike camouflaging, blanching was fast and direct, suggesting it uses a different and repeatable control system," said Dr. Dominic Evans, a postdoctoral fellow in the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research team.

When the researchers took high resolution images of the blanching display, they realized that some elements of the previous camouflage pattern remained, with the blanching pattern superimposed on top. Afterwards, the cuttlefish would slowly but reliably return to displaying its pre-blanching skin pattern.

"This suggests that information about the initial camouflage somehow remains. The blanching is more like a response that temporarily overrides the camouflage signals from the brain and might be controlled by a completely different neural circuit in the brain," explained Dr. Xitong Liang, joint first author of the study and former postdoctoral researcher in the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research team. "The next step is to capture neural recordings from cuttlefish brains, so we can further understand exactly how they control their unique and fascinating skin patterning abilities."

When octopuses sleep, their quiet periods of slumber are punctuated by short bursts of frenzied activity. Their arms and eyes twitch, their breathing rate quickens, and their skin flashes with vibrant colors.

Now, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), in collaboration with the University of Washington, have closely examined the brain activity and skin patterning in octopuses (Octopus laqueus) during this active period of sleep and discovered that they closely resemble neural activity and skin patterning behavior seen when awake. Wake-like activity also occurs during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in mammals -- the phase in which most dreams occur.

The study, published 28 June in Nature, highlights the remarkable similarities between the sleeping behavior of octopuses and humans and provides fascinating insights about the origin and function of sleep.

"All animals seem to show some form of sleep, even simple animals like jellyfish and fruit flies. But for a long time, only vertebrates were known to cycle between two different sleep stages," said senior author, Professor Sam Reiter, who leads the Computational Neuroethology Unit at OIST.

"The fact that two-stage sleep has independently evolved in distantly related creatures, like octopuses, which have large but completely different brain structures from vertebrates, suggests that possessing an active, wake-like stage may be a general feature of complex cognition," said author Dr. Leenoy Meshulam, a statistical physicist at the University of Washington, who helped design the research during her three month stay at OIST as a guest of the Theoretical Sciences Visiting Program.

To begin, the scientists checked whether the octopuses were truly asleep during this active period. They tested how the octopuses responded to a physical stimulus and found that when in both the quiet and active stage of sleep, the octopuses required stronger stimulation before reacting, compared to when they were awake. The team also discovered that if they prevented the octopuses from sleeping, or disrupted them during the active phase of sleep, the octopuses later entered active sleep sooner and more frequently.

"This compensatory behavior nails down the active stage as being an essential stage of sleep that is needed for octopuses to properly function," said Aditi Pophale, co-first author of the study and PhD student at OIST.

The researchers also delved into the brain activity of the octopuses when awake and asleep. During quiet sleep, the scientists saw characteristic brain waves that closely resemble certain waveforms seen during non-REM sleep in mammalian brains called sleep spindles. Although the exact function of these waveforms is unclear even within humans, scientists believe they aid in consolidating memories. Using a cutting-edge microscope built by co-first author Dr. Tomoyuki Mano, the researchers determined that these sleep spindle-like waves occur in regions of the octopuses' brains associated with learning and memory, suggesting that these waves potentially serve a similar function to humans.

Roughly once an hour, the octopuses entered an active sleep phase for around a minute. During this stage, the octopuses' brain activity very closely resembled their brain activity while awake, just like REM sleep does in humans.

The research group also captured and analyzed the changing skin patterns of the octopuses when awake and asleep in ultra-high 8K resolution.

"By filming in such high resolution, we can see how each individual pigmented cell behaves in order to create an overall skin pattern," said Dr. Meshulam. "This could help us create simple skin pattern models to understand the general principles of waking and sleeping patterning behavior."

When awake, octopuses control thousands of tiny, pigmented cells in their skin, creating a vast array of different skin patterns. They use these patterns to camouflage themselves in different environments, and in social or threat displays, such as warning off predators and communicating with each other. During active sleep, the scientists reported that the octopuses cycled through these same skin patterns.

The similarities between active sleep and awake states could be explained by a variety of reasons, said the scientists. One theory is that octopuses may be practicing their skin patterns to improve their waking camouflage behavior, or simply maintaining the pigment cells.

Another intriguing idea is that the octopuses could be re-living and learning from their waking experiences, such as hunting or hiding from a predator, and reactivating the skin pattern associated with each experience. In other words, they could be doing something similar to dreaming.

"In this sense, while humans can verbally report what kind of dreams they had only once they wake, the octopuses' skin pattern acts as a visual readout of their brain activity during sleep," said Prof. Reiter.

He added, "We currently don't know which of these explanations, if any, could be correct. We are very interested in investigating further."