Key to understanding aliens might be unlocked by octopus' tentacles

From Fox News.com (July 1):

The key to understanding E.T. might be as simple or as complex as understanding a creature on Earth we know very little about — the octopus.

New research presented at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference looks at how an octopus is able to perceive and process information using their tentacles, which are believed to have minds of their own.

“The octopus’ arms have a neural ring that bypasses the brain, and so the arms can send information to each other without the brain being aware of it,” Dominic Sivitilli, a graduate student in behavioral neuroscience and astrobiology at the University of Washington, said in a statement. “So while the brain isn’t quite sure where the arms are in space, the arms know where each other are and this allows the arms to coordinate during actions like crawling locomotion.”

Sivitilli worked with different kinds of octopus for the experiment, including the Giant Pacific octopus and the smaller East Pacific red octopus. Both species are believed to have learning and problem-solving capabilities that are similar to those seen in crows, parrots and primates.

Like humans, the octopus has similar behaviors to other vertebrates, but it's the central nervous system that could be the key to understanding life outside our planet. Of the 500 million neurons inside an octopus, 350 million of them are in its eight arms. Its arms are all capable of processing and learning sensory information, akin to running and understanding eight computers at once. [read more]

Interesting.