Robohub.org
 

Oldest known cardiovascular system already brain-focused | ScienceMag


by
09 April 2014



share this:

“The brain was well supplied with looping blood vessels, which extended branches into the arthropod’s alienlike eyestalks and antennae and rivaled the complexity of today’s crustaceans. From this Gordian architecture, the researchers can now speculate about the critter’s lifestyle. Its brain required abundant oxygen, so it presumably did a fair amount of thinking.”

John Payne‘s insight:

As if to underscore the importance of pairing information processing with mobility, this 520 million year old cardiovascular system was already highly developed for providing oxygen to the brain, suggesting that these creatures were also spending a disproportionate percentage of their energy budgets on correlating sensory input, a situation which could only arise if it somehow provided a significant evolutionary advantage.  It may be a stretch to generalize this to robotics, but you can judge for yourself whether providing the resources necessary to integrate data from disparate sources in a timely manner confers an  advantage worth the expense and effort.

See on news.sciencemag.org




John Payne

            AUAI is supported by:



Subscribe to Robohub newsletter on substack



Related posts :

A mini robot to simplify dental treatment

  24 Jul 2026
Researchers have developed a miniature dental robot that could one day automatically prepare teeth for crowns.

Pressure-free growing robots for soft medical robotics

A Q&A with the best paper award winner at RoboSoft.

Interactive world simulator for robot policy training and evaluation

  20 Jul 2026
Yixuan Wang discusses his faithful world simulator that allows robots to learn how to push, pick up, and grasp objects.

Undergrads’ weed-killing robot wins top prize

  17 Jul 2026
Their robot can travel through a vineyard or orchard without a human operator, zapping weeds with a small amount of electricity.

A flapping robot swims and flies like a diving bird

  15 Jul 2026
An aerial-aquatic vehicle developed at EPFL and MIT could lead to a new class of devices for ocean exploration.

Wristband enables wearers to control a robotic hand with their own movements

  13 Jul 2026
By moving their hands and fingers, users can direct a robot to play the piano, shoot a basketball, or manipulate objects in a virtual environment.

#RoboCup2026 social media round-up

  08 Jul 2026
Find out what the teams got up to at this year's RoboCup extravaganza in Incheon.

#RoboCup2026 – humanoid league knockout stages

  06 Jul 2026
Find out who won the small, middle and large divisions in Incheon.



AUAI is supported by:







Subscribe to Robohub newsletter on substack




 















©2026.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence