Word: frogs
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Crouched motionless on a mossy stone, a frog seems to be thinking about nothing, and in a sense this is true: the frog's brain is too small and primitive for real thought. But its bright, bulging eyes have a keen, built-in intelligence of their own. They select among stimuli and report to the feeble brain only those visual items that are important to a frog's wellbeing. When a cloud drifts slowly over the sun, a frog's eyes do not bother the brain with the meaningless event. But when a bird swoops down, suddenly...
...sensitive and selective is the frog's-eye computer that human scientists have long tried to construct a duplicate. At a bionics* symposium sponsored by the Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base last week, Radio Corp. of America demonstrated a reasonable facsimile. RCA's artificial eye is a heavy box, 40 in. by 40 in., its end studded with 1,600 small light detectors that simulate the light-sensitive cells of a frog's retina. Behind the detectors are layers of electronic components that serve as frog nerve cells. They are interconnected in such...
...frog could catch insects with RCA's crude and ponderous eye, but the Air Force has high hopes of developing it into a practical instrument that can view a scene and make instant, frog-quick decisions. Unblinkingly focused on a radar scope, it might report only those aircraft or missiles that are potentially hostile. In an even more refined version, it could ride in a missile and steer its warhead toward targets that it had been trained to seek...
...numerous animals; each comes as a surprise. Swinging from the sloppy bookshelf is a toy monkey. A pink trojan horse and grey kitten sit on the desk. Also on the desk stands a willow plant, to which is attached a single large, yellow bee. And a gaint green cotton frog is perched on the magazine table...
...concerned, all I need is my bedroom with a rocking chair, a flashlight and coon dog." As for pictures, said Davis, "the only ones I'd want would be a picture of my mother and father and a picture of the Bach Springs leap frog team, and go with that...