Octopuses and their arms are a bit of a mystery. Not because scientists don’t know how they work; they’re boneless hydrostats, made up of groups of muscles working together and capable of bending, twisting, elongating or shortening — like a frog’s tongue, or an elephant’s trunk. But because scientists are still figuring out how most octopuses use those arms in the wild. Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the marine lab at Florida Atlantic University wanted to answer that question. By analyzing videos taken in the wild, they found that octopuses seemed to prefer doing certain tasks with certain arms… and that the majority of the time, they used their front arms to explore and their back arms to get around. Researchers on the project hope that furthering our understanding of octopus behavior and movement will be useful for developing things like soft robotics.Interested in more science discoveries? Email us your question at [email protected] to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey Shore Rivers, Regina Barber here. And Rachel Carlson. With our bi-weekly science news roundup featuring the hosts of All Things Considered. And today we have the always fun Ari Shapiro. We're going to miss you, Ari.
Oh, I'm only always fun when I'm with you. It's a testament to your show.
I love doing it.
So I hear today you're going to tell me about some mysterious red dots in space.
Yeah, and how the brain might fill in missing information. And lastly, you'll love this, Ari, the wiggly world of octopus arms.
Eight times the fun.
Exactly. All that on this episode of Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
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