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Article: Unity in diversity; Brittlestar eyes.(Brittlestars have complex eyes)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- August 25, 2001
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Eye, eye, what's this 'ere?
What constitutes an "eye" is not as obvious as it might seem at first sight
IN GREEK mythology, Argus had 100 eyes, while the Cyclops had but one. Reality, though, is sometimes stranger than myth. If Joanna Aizenberg, of Lucent Technologies' Bell Laboratories, in New Jersey, and her colleagues are correct, there is a real creature that combines these legends perfectly--and to add to its monstrous qualities, has five arms and no head. It is Ophiocoma wendtii, a brittlestar. According to their paper in this week's Nature, this animal has a single eye, but that eye is made not of 100, but of thousands of components, and is ...