Gavin writes:

> Guy writes:
>  > There was one scene with a sun star fish (many legs)heading for a
>  > sea anemone.  The sea anemone started to shake back and forth
>  > violently until it dislodged itself from the rock and floated to
>  > safety.  I didn't know they could do that.  The sun star almost
>  > caught the anemone with the tip of one appendage.
>  > Question is:  How did it know it could soon be lunch?
>
>  A "sea anemone" has little eyes on each of its little tentacles.  These
>  hundreds of eyes are constantly on the lookout so that the animal can...
>
>  "see an enemy."

Although I found Gavin's response very funny, I'm almost positive that the
basic message isn't correct. Of all of the Cnidaria, it is my impression that
only the box jellyfish & their kin have a sufficiently evolved neural net
capable of supporting eyes and having that information processed in an
optical ganglion so that it can directly command musculature.

As to Guy's basic question, *not* being lunch is the key concept in
adaptation. Whatever advantage you might have, no matter how small it is, if
it provides you with some differential protection over that of your fellows,
you will tend to leave more offspring than those who did become lunch, and
that advantage will tend to be only further emphasized in future generations.
As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his novel, Galapagos, "You come from a long line of
winners, my son. Champions every one."

Several people have written me and asked when the next episodes of the series
will be on tv. I said in the majority of my responses that I suspected next
Tuesday. As it occurs, that's correct. The schedule for the series appears at:

    http://www.seastudios.com/sol/index.html

If you do plan on watching the show, you probably will greatly enjoy first
reading a 70-page document from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute:

    http://www.mbari.org/itd/retrospective/full_text.pdf

The MBARI was wholly the result of David Packard's interest, funding and
directorship. Although Packard's contributions to the MBARI lace the entire
document, you only need to read the first 20 pages to get a sense of what he
created.

The MBARI is very reminiscent of an older HP, where although musicians and
academics didn't rule the day-to-day business of HP, they were never very far
away from its core either.

Wirt Atmar

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