Behold the frogfish. This bizarre creature really is a fish, despite its bullfrog face, pectoral fins that look like webbed feet, and a froglike mouth that snaps up unsuspecting prey .

But the way it lures its prey is even weirder. Frogfish belong to the anglerfish family known as Antennariidae. Like their anglerfish cousins who lurk in the ocean’s depths, these ambush predators attract their next meal via an appendage on their heads that they use like a fishing lure. This appendage is known as the illicium and thought to have once been a dorsal fin. It has a specialized skin flap, the esca at the end. It tantalizes small fish and crustaceans into thinking it’s a worm until they come too close.

How frogfish controlled the illicium was previously unknown. Led by biologist Naoyuki Yamamoto of Nagoya University, a team of researchers have now discovered that a specialized population of motor neurons have evolved to allow it to shake the illicium around like a wriggling worm. Yamamoto thinks they were originally dorsal fin motor neurons that became more specialized.

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Behold the frogfish. This bizarre creature really is a fish, despite its bullfrog face, pectoral fins that look like webbed feet, and a froglike mouth that snaps up unsuspecting prey .

But the way it lures its prey is even weirder. Frogfish belong to the anglerfish family known as Antennariidae. Like their anglerfish cousins who lurk in the ocean’s depths, these ambush predators attract their next meal via an appendage on their heads that they use like a fishing lure. This appendage is known as the illicium and thought to have once been a dorsal fin. It has a specialized skin flap, the esca at the end. It tantalizes small fish and crustaceans into thinking it’s a worm until they come too close.

How frogfish controlled the illicium was previously unknown. Led by biologist Naoyuki Yamamoto of Nagoya University, a team of researchers have now discovered that a specialized population of motor neurons have evolved to allow it to shake the illicium around like a wriggling worm. Yamamoto thinks they were originally dorsal fin motor neurons that became more specialized.

Read full article

Comments

Behold the frogfish. This bizarre creature really is a fish, despite its bullfrog face, pectoral fins that look like webbed feet, and a froglike mouth that snaps up unsuspecting prey .

But the way it lures its prey is even weirder. Frogfish belong to the anglerfish family known as Antennariidae. Like their anglerfish cousins who lurk in the ocean’s depths, these ambush predators attract their next meal via an appendage on their heads that they use like a fishing lure. This appendage is known as the illicium and thought to have once been a dorsal fin. It has a specialized skin flap, the esca at the end. It tantalizes small fish and crustaceans into thinking it’s a worm until they come too close.

How frogfish controlled the illicium was previously unknown. Led by biologist Naoyuki Yamamoto of Nagoya University, a team of researchers have now discovered that a specialized population of motor neurons have evolved to allow it to shake the illicium around like a wriggling worm. Yamamoto thinks they were originally dorsal fin motor neurons that became more specialized.

Read full article

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In the weeks before Donald Trump takes office, he has moved to delay a nationwide TikTok ban from taking effect until he has a chance to make a deal on his own terms that he believes could allow TikTok to continue operating in the US without posing a national security threat.

On Friday, Trump's lawyer filed a brief , urging the Supreme Court to stay enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that would either ban TikTok on January 19 or force TikTok to sell the company to prevent China's alleged covert control of content on the app.

The Supreme Court had previously denied TikTok's request for an injunction that would have delayed enforcement until Trump takes office, instead planning to rush a decision on whether the Act violates the First Amendment before the deadline hits.

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In the weeks before Donald Trump takes office, he has moved to delay a nationwide TikTok ban from taking effect until he has a chance to make a deal on his own terms that he believes could allow TikTok to continue operating in the US without posing a national security threat.

On Friday, Trump's lawyer filed a brief , urging the Supreme Court to stay enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that would either ban TikTok on January 19 or force TikTok to sell the company to prevent China's alleged covert control of content on the app.

The Supreme Court had previously denied TikTok's request for an injunction that would have delayed enforcement until Trump takes office, instead planning to rush a decision on whether the Act violates the First Amendment before the deadline hits.

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In the weeks before Donald Trump takes office, he has moved to delay a nationwide TikTok ban from taking effect until he has a chance to make a deal on his own terms that he believes could allow TikTok to continue operating in the US without posing a national security threat.

On Friday, Trump's lawyer filed a brief , urging the Supreme Court to stay enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that would either ban TikTok on January 19 or force TikTok to sell the company to prevent China's alleged covert control of content on the app.

The Supreme Court had previously denied TikTok's request for an injunction that would have delayed enforcement until Trump takes office, instead planning to rush a decision on whether the Act violates the First Amendment before the deadline hits.

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Connected cars are great—at least until some company leaves unencrypted location data on the Internet for anyone to find. That's what happened with over 800,000 EVs manufactured by the Volkswagen Group, after Cariad, an automative software company that handles much of the development tasks for VW, left several terabytes of data unprotected on Amazon's cloud.

According to Motor1 , a whistleblower gave German publication Der Spiegel and hacking collective Chaos Computer Club a heads-up about the misconfiguration. Der Spiegel and CCC then spent some time sifting through the data, with which allowed them to tie individual cars to their owners.

"The security hole allowed the publication to track the location of two German politicians with alarming precision, with the data placing a member of the German Defense Committee at his father’s retirement home and at the country’s military barracks," wrote Motor1.

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Connected cars are great—at least until some company leaves unencrypted location data on the Internet for anyone to find. That's what happened with over 800,000 EVs manufactured by the Volkswagen Group, after Cariad, an automative software company that handles much of the development tasks for VW, left several terabytes of data unprotected on Amazon's cloud.

According to Motor1 , a whistleblower gave German publication Der Spiegel and hacking collective Chaos Computer Club a heads-up about the misconfiguration. Der Spiegel and CCC then spent some time sifting through the data, with which allowed them to tie individual cars to their owners.

"The security hole allowed the publication to track the location of two German politicians with alarming precision, with the data placing a member of the German Defense Committee at his father’s retirement home and at the country’s military barracks," wrote Motor1.

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Connected cars are great—at least until some company leaves unencrypted location data on the Internet for anyone to find. That's what happened with over 800,000 EVs manufactured by the Volkswagen Group, after Cariad, an automative software company that handles much of the development tasks for VW, left several terabytes of data unprotected on Amazon's cloud.

According to Motor1 , a whistleblower gave German publication Der Spiegel and hacking collective Chaos Computer Club a heads-up about the misconfiguration. Der Spiegel and CCC then spent some time sifting through the data, with which allowed them to tie individual cars to their owners.

"The security hole allowed the publication to track the location of two German politicians with alarming precision, with the data placing a member of the German Defense Committee at his father’s retirement home and at the country’s military barracks," wrote Motor1.

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