ResearchBlogging editor’s selections: Adaptive optics, adaptive mimicry, and adaptive freeloading

Posted on August 31, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Binocular adaptive optics simulator: the future of vision assessment now! (or the end of phoropters?) At Optics Confidential, Pablo Artal discusses his own research on adaptive optics, which could in the end finally change the 100-year old use of the phoropter in eye exams.

Mimicry: survival or flattery?… Most of us are familiar with animal mimicry, in which one species is ‘disguised’ as another. Jim Caryl at mental indigestion reports on fascinating research on mimicry at the molecular level, which allows bacteriophages to safely invade target bacteria.

Freeloading pays off, but only up to a point. While we’re on the subject of sneaky tricks tricks by bacteria, Iddo Friedberg at Byte Size Biology talks about “social behavior” amongst bacterial colonies, and how computer simulations show that some bacteria can act are “freeloaders”!