According to A study published in the magazine Biology Letters, oysters are one of the creatures that live in sync with the moon, since the lunar cycle influences the width of the opening of their shells.

Biological clock

After tracking down 12 Pacific oysters, Crassostrea gigas, which were submerged along the French coast, were carefully observed through three lunar cycles, each lasting 29.5 days. Using electrodes, They measured the width with which the oysters opened their shells every 1.6 seconds, and then compared that data with data about the moon's cycle.

In Xataka Science

Extraordinary singularities of ordinary animals (XXXVII): the pearl oyster

They thus discovered that oysters paid attention to the phases of the moon: as the moon grew or became full, the oysters narrowed their shells, never closing them completely. And when the moon began to wane, or retreated into the new moon phase, they opened their shells again.

What that suggests is that oysters may rely on an internal moon clock rather than direct signals, such as the intensity of moonlight. If that were the case, they would open their shells equally during the first quarter moon and the last quarter moon since the intensity of the light would be similar. But the oysters reacted differently to those phases, suggesting they are following an internal calendar rather than reacting to Moonlight.

In Xataka Science

Our brain's clock goes back two weeks a year

But why do oysters care about the phases of the moon? Laura Payton, co-author of the study from the University of Bordeaux, points out the following:

We know that oysters open their valves when there is food, and previous research has shown that the movement of plankton, which oysters filter from seawater and consume, is influenced by moonlight.

Oysters aren't the only creatures that follow lunar cycles. Sozens of coral species use moonlight as a signal to release their wads of eggs and sperm. Some crab species also use the intensity of moonlight to signal the start of their mating migrations. Salmon, squid, and plankton also synchronize their life cycles with the moon.

–
The news

Oysters open and close their shells in sync with the phases of the Moon

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.

Kill one person to prevent the death of ten? Torture a victim to prevent someone else from torturing them more cruelly? Commit something illegal because someone else will end up committing it in the same way? All of them are dilemmas, unsolvable through logic, that are resolved under the moral prism of the consequentialism.

Consequentialism, then, maintains that the morality of an action depends only on its consequences (the end justifies the means).

Teleological ethics

Consequentialism, or teleological ethics, refers to all those theories of normative ethics that hold that the rightness or wrongness of our actions is determined by the value or disvalue that occurs due to them. It is also known as consecutive ethics, since the judgment of acts is based on their consequences, and is opposed to deontological ethics, which maintain that the morality of an action is independent of the good or evil generated from it.

A type of teleological ethics, the one that perhaps interests us most when we morally evaluate an everyday issue, is utilitarianism, that is: an action is morally correct if favorable results predominate over undesirable ones, regardless of who the beneficiaries are. Therefore, The best possible action is that which produces the greatest good; as would be measured by an impartial observer.

It has been argued against consequentialist ethics that it is impossible to fully estimate the consequences of an action, making it difficult to reach confident judgments about them. So, instead of consequentialism, others opt for virtue ethics: upholding untouchable ethical principles, whatever happens (even if it is bad for one or bad for all).

In Xataka Science

Those on the left and those on the right are good people but in different ways

Naturally, none of us adopts one way or another of conducting ourselves through the world absolutely, but rather swings from one extreme to another depending on the circumstances and, also, our own feelings. moral matrices. The theory of moral matrices or moral foundations was first proposed by psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Craig Joseph, based on the work carried out by the cultural anthropologist Richard Shweder, and has subsequently been developed by a diverse group of collaborators, and popularized in Haidt's book entitled The mind of the righteous.

Our moral matrixes also incline us to adopt all kinds of decisions, including political ones (from our position to abortion to If we heel to the left or right).

There is no correct position. Everything can be debated and weighed. However, to know to what extent you can feel moral disgust or not when acting in a consequentialist way, I propose below a small moral dilemma in this regard.:

–
The news

To what extent can the end justify the means? It all depends on your moral matrix

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.

Excessive monotony bores and distracts, as does excessive noise. You have to be able to swing from one extreme to the other. Even when it comes to fonts (in this same entry you will see various sizes and bold, for example, as well as some links).

This is what a group of psychologists discovered who agreed with various teachers to reformat the pedagogical materials they usedb.

Three unusual fonts

He study involved real students in real classrooms in Chesterfield, Ohio. The researchers began by obtaining supplemental class materials, such as PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and worksheets, from a variety of teachers. Topics included English, physics, history and chemistry.

Half of the classes, selected at random, continued with the same books. The other half were given the same books but reformatted with each of these three unusual fonts., such as Hattenschweller, Monotype corsiva and Comic Sans Italicised.

They are clearly fonts that, at first glance, are distracting and seem absurd, especially in the case of Comic Sans. However, these sources forced students to pay attention, calm down, and think about what they were reading.

The classes that had finally made use of these strange fonts, well, They ended up getting better grades in the final exams of the semester.

In Xataka Science

The two characteristics that combine the experts who make the most mistakes

This study demonstrated that students' retention of material in a wide range of subjects (science and humanities classes) and difficulty levels (regular, honors, and advanced placement) can be significantly improved in natural settings by presenting the material reading in a format that is a little more difficult to understand. If a simple change of source can significantly increase student achievement, one can only imagine the number of beneficial cognitive interventions waiting to be discovered.

–
The news

How using different fonts allows the reader to concentrate more

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.