Lomonosov Moscow State University

    Established in 1755, Lomonosov Moscow State University (In Cyrillic: Моско́вский госуда́рственный университе́т и́мени М. В. Ломоно́сова) is the grand, sprawling, higher education center in Moscow, Russia.  Comprised of over 1,000 buildings, covering over 1,000,000 m², the university is situated in the southwest Moscow neighborhood of Sparrow Hills.  Over 40,000 students attend faculties ranging from Soil Science to Political Science to Cybernetics to Television and Military Training.  Eight Nobel Laureates (five in Physics, two, the Peace prize, and one in Chemistry), 5 Fields Medal winners (the world's prize in Mathematics), and the writers Chekhov and Fathers and Sons' author Ivan Turgenev were associated with the University.
   The building above was designed (1949-1953) under the Stalinist architecture movement by architect Lev Rudnev.  The library's stacks house over 9,000,000 works.

Please visit the Moscow State University website for more information.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Santiago Ramon y Cajal was a Spanish physician living from 1852-1934.  He was an artist and Nobel laureate.  His drawings and paintings of nerves, erythrocyte (red blood cell) blood flow, and the brain elicit the whimsical nature of physiology.  He was a key contributor to our understanding and visualizing the nervous system, the body's fastest acting communication system.

Please visit the Cajal Institute of Madrid.

Octopus Intelligence

   The cephalopod the octopus is considered one of the more intelligent of species.  How this intelligence has been measured was both scientific (solving mazes, tests of cognition, typical psychology tests for animals) and yet is also implied-- they appear to be curious, mischievous, and are even harmless troublemakers.  Rather, the more anecdotal information about octopuses come in the form of endearing childlike introductions between a bewildered human and an examining cephalopod.  As for trivial information:

 The brain of the octopus is wrapped around its esophagus..."it also shares key features such as folded lobes, a hallmark of complexity, and distinct visual and tactile memory centers" (See below).
  I remember reading at one point about the octopus being one of the few animals that may look into a mirror and know it is looking at itself... 

"Previous researchers tested octopuses in artificial mazes; Mather and Anderson found ways to observe learning and cognition in more natural circumstances. They charted the efficiency and flexibility with which giant Pacific octopuses switch strategies to open different shellfish—smashing thin mussels, prying open clams, drilling tougher-shelled clams with their rasplike radulae. When served clams sealed with steel wire, for example, octopuses deftly switched from prying to drilling.
Tool use was once commonly invoked as uniquely human. Scientists know better now, but they still cite it as evidence of distinguishing intelligence in chimpanzees, elephants, and crows. Mather describes several ways octopuses use their water jets as tools: to clean their dens, push away rocks and other debris, and drive off pesky scavenger fish.
    In 1999 she and Anderson published an even more sensational claim: that octopuses engage in play, the deliberate, repeated, outwardly useless activity through which smarter animals explore their world and refine their skills. Amateur aquarists were the first to suspect that octopuses played. While still in high school, James Wood, now a marine biologist at the University of Texas's marine lab in Galveston, watched his pet octopus grab, submerge, and release her tank's floating hydrometer as if she were a toddler with a bath toy. She also spread her mantle and "bubble surfed" the tank's aerator jets.
Anderson tested for play by presenting eight giant Pacific octopuses with floating pill bottles in varying colors and textures twice a day for five days. Six octopuses examined the bottles and lost interest, but two blew them repeatedly into their tanks' jets. One propelled a bottle at an angle so it circled the tank; the other shot it so it rebounded quickly—and on three occasions shot it back at least 20 times, as if it were bouncing a ball."


Please see Discover Magazine's 2003 article on the Octopus