GETTY IMAGESmechanism rather than being rooted in
specific vertebrate brain regions.
Other labs are investigating how octopus
arms sense and interact with their environ-
ment with minimal input from the brain. Last
fall researchers reported in Cell that special-
ized receptors in octopus suckers detect
chemicals on surfaces they contact, enabling
them to taste by touching. “This is an exam-
ple of how we need to consider studying life
in all shapes and sizes to really understand
how molecular and cellular adaptations
give rise to unique organismal features and
functions,” says Nicholas Bellono, a molec-
ular and cellular biologist at Harvard Uni-
versity and senior author of the Cell study.
Scientists will soon have even more
resources to draw on. In 2016 the Marine
Biological Laboratory launched a cephalo-
pod breeding program to culture research
animals. Albertin and program manager
Bret Grasse are now working with Dölen
and other colleagues to sequence the
genome of Octopus chierchiae —a golf ball–
to tangerine-sized Central American species
that is the leading candidate for an octopus
model organism. O. chierchiae’ s small sizewould make it ideal for raising in a lab, and
unlike a number of other octopus species,
scientists have figured out how to breed it.
Cephalopods will no doubt bring more
insights into fundamental biology. Techno-
logical breakthroughs could follow, too.
Materials researchers are interested in the
animals’ skin for its incredible camouflage
ability, for example, and computer scientists
may someday draw on octopuses’ separate
learning and memory systems—one for
vision and one for tactile senses—for new
approaches to machine learning.
Octopuses could also inspire biomedical
engineering advances. Rosenthal is study-
ing cephalopods’ incredibly high rates of
RNA editing, which could someday lead to
new technologies to erase unwanted muta-
tions encoded in human genomes. Rags-
dale is investigating how octopuses quickly
regenerate their arms, nerve cords and all;
this might one day contribute to therapies
for humans who lose limbs or have brain or
spinal cord damage. “Biology has pretty
much figured out a solution to almost
everything,” Rosenthal says. “We just have
to find it.” — Rachel Nuwertrain a sophisticated scanning algorithm
for pinpointing them.
Adult lanternflies feast on more than 70
plant species and leave behind so-called
honeydew droppings, which attract wasps
and other stinging insects and which breed
a black, sooty mold that can significantly
damage plants. The mature lanternflies die
in the cold, but the masses of between 30
and 50 eggs, which look like a grayish put-
ty, release a new generation in the spring.
Once fully trained on thousands of pho-
tos, the image-processing algorithm will let
scanning devices detect significant infesta-
tions in real time, says Drexel mechanical
engineer Antonios Kontsos, who is building
the algorithm. The system will first be put to
work in high-risk locations such as rail and
shipping yards, where storage containers
often sit around for long periods and it is dif-
ficult and dangerous for a human to check
underneath them for egg masses, Tang
says. The lanternflies’ favorite tree, Ailanthus
altissima, tends to grow near railroad tracks.
People already scan for signs of pests
using drones with computer vision; these
drones fly over crops and treescapes tocheck for significant damage. But Tang
says her team’s type of discrete, close-up
egg-detection system is new.
“We’ve seen a lot of ingenuity come from
spotted lanternfly [research], and this is an -
other great example,” says Heather Leach,
who studies these insects at Pennsylvania
State University and is not involved in the ini-
tiative. Any methods that help to reduce the
bug’s spread, especially in regions where it
has not yet been established, offer a better
chance at controlling it, Leach says.
The team aims to finish the algorithm
and start using it to search for eggs before
the bugs begin emerging. Egg masses
are much easier to contain than jumping
nymphs or swarming adults, notes Karen
Verderame, curator of entomology at the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel Uni-
versity. Re searchers will first target top-pri-
ority spots using a portable scanning device
that can look for egg masses in visible, infra-
red and ultraviolet light, Kontsos says. He
anticipates someday using a version of this
device in a “precision-agriculture frame-
work”—installing it on a drone for efficient,
large-area scans. — Claire Marie Porter© 2021 Scientific AmericanGETTY IMAGESmechanism rather than being rooted in
specific vertebrate brain regions.
Other labs are investigating how octopus
arms sense and interact with their environ-
ment with minimal input from the brain. Last
fall researchers reported in Cell that special-
ized receptors in octopus suckers detect
chemicals on surfaces they contact, enabling
them to taste by touching. “This is an exam-
ple of how we need to consider studying life
in all shapes and sizes to really understand
how molecular and cellular adaptations
give rise to unique organismal features and
functions,” says Nicholas Bellono, a molec-
ular and cellular biologist at Harvard Uni-
versity and senior author of the Cell study.
Scientists will soon have even more
resources to draw on. In 2016 the Marine
Biological Laboratory launched a cephalo-
pod breeding program to culture research
animals. Albertin and program manager
Bret Grasse are now working with Dölen
and other colleagues to sequence the
genome of Octopus chierchiae —a golf ball–
to tangerine-sized Central American species
that is the leading candidate for an octopus
model organism. O. chierchiae’ s small sizewould make it ideal for raising in a lab, and
unlike a number of other octopus species,
scientists have figured out how to breed it.
Cephalopods will no doubt bring more
insights into fundamental biology. Techno-
logical breakthroughs could follow, too.
Materials researchers are interested in the
animals’ skin for its incredible camouflage
ability, for example, and computer scientists
may someday draw on octopuses’ separate
learning and memory systems—one for
vision and one for tactile senses—for new
approaches to machine learning.
Octopuses could also inspire biomedical
engineering advances. Rosenthal is study-
ing cephalopods’ incredibly high rates of
RNA editing, which could someday lead to
new technologies to erase unwanted muta-
tions encoded in human genomes. Rags-
dale is investigating how octopuses quickly
regenerate their arms, nerve cords and all;
this might one day contribute to therapies
for humans who lose limbs or have brain or
spinal cord damage. “Biology has pretty
much figured out a solution to almost
everything,” Rosenthal says. “We just have
to find it.” — Rachel Nuwertrain a sophisticated scanning algorithm
for pinpointing them.
Adult lanternflies feast on more than 70
plant species and leave behind so-called
honeydew droppings, which attract wasps
and other stinging insects and which breed
a black, sooty mold that can significantly
damage plants. The mature lanternflies die
in the cold, but the masses of between 30
and 50 eggs, which look like a grayish put-
ty, release a new generation in the spring.
Once fully trained on thousands of pho-
tos, the image-processing algorithm will let
scanning devices detect significant infesta-
tions in real time, says Drexel mechanical
engineer Antonios Kontsos, who is building
the algorithm. The system will first be put to
work in high-risk locations such as rail and
shipping yards, where storage containers
often sit around for long periods and it is dif-
ficult and dangerous for a human to check
underneath them for egg masses, Tang
says. The lanternflies’ favorite tree, Ailanthus
altissima, tends to grow near railroad tracks.
People already scan for signs of pests
using drones with computer vision; these
drones fly over crops and treescapes tocheck for significant damage. But Tang
says her team’s type of discrete, close-up
egg-detection system is new.
“We’ve seen a lot of ingenuity come from
spotted lanternfly [research], and this is an -
other great example,” says Heather Leach,
who studies these insects at Pennsylvania
State University and is not involved in the ini-
tiative. Any methods that help to reduce the
bug’s spread, especially in regions where it
has not yet been established, offer a better
chance at controlling it, Leach says.
The team aims to finish the algorithm
and start using it to search for eggs before
the bugs begin emerging. Egg masses
are much easier to contain than jumping
nymphs or swarming adults, notes Karen
Verderame, curator of entomology at the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel Uni-
versity. Re searchers will first target top-pri-
ority spots using a portable scanning device
that can look for egg masses in visible, infra-
red and ultraviolet light, Kontsos says. He
anticipates someday using a version of this
device in a “precision-agriculture frame-
work”—installing it on a drone for efficient,
large-area scans. — Claire Marie Portersad0321Adva3p.indd 15 1/20/21 7:37 PM
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