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According to the Scientific Daily, the electric scorpionfish, a scaleless Amazonian fish that can deliver a strong tremor enough to knock down an adult horse, has an electric shock system that is unusually similar to a taser (a type of weapon). The discovery was based on a nine-month study of the use of high-voltage current localization and numbness in prey. The study was led by Kenneth Catania, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Vanderbilt in Stevenson, United States. It was published in the December 5 issue of the journal Science.
Humans are not unfamiliar with the fish that can discharge. Ancient Egyptians used electric shock to treat epilepsy. The English physicist Michael Faraday used trout to investigate the nature of electricity, and the trout's anatomy inspired Volta to invent the first cell. Biologists have determined that a six-foot-long battery can produce 600 volts - which is equivalent to five times the voltage of a U.S. outlet. This summer, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that they had completed the sequencing of the Electrolyzed genome.
However, before that, no one fully understood the working principle of electric shock system. In order to solve this mystery, Catania equipped a large aquarium with a system that can detect electrical signals from electrical signals, and obtained several electrical probes as experimental items. The maximum length was 4 feet.
As Catania began to observe the behavior of the electric eel, biologists found that their actions were unusually rapid. They can shock and swallow a worm or small fish in 1/10 seconds. So Catania equipped a high-speed video system that runs thousands of frames per second, so that the slow-motion camera studied the behavior of electricity.
Catania recorded three different types of electrical discharges: low-pressure pulses used to sense the environment; short sequences of two to three high-pressure millisecond pulses released during the hunting process (known as Erlian pulse or triplet. Pulse); and high-pressure, high-frequency pulses that are released during predation or self-defense. Catania found that the electric snorkel launches a high-frequency high-voltage pulse on free-flowing prey 10 to 15 milliseconds before the attack. In high-speed video, it is apparent that after three to four milliseconds after an electric shock hit the fish, the fish is completely paralyzed. This paralysis is only temporary: if the electric carp does not immediately catch the fish, the latter will quickly regain mobility and move quickly.
"This is really incredible. The electric whistle can gnaw its prey within three milliseconds and the fish is completely paralyzed." Catania said. These observations have produced a very obvious question: How does electricity do this? There is no clear answer to this question in the scientific literature.
"I have friends with law enforcement agencies, so I am very familiar with the working principle of the taser," Catania explained. "I was shocked when I noticed that the discharge of the eel was so similar to that of the Taser. The Taser issued 19 high-voltage pulses per second, and the krypton produced 400 pulses per second."
The working principle of the taser gun is to paralyze the nerves that control the muscles of the human body, which leads to the involuntary contraction of the muscles. In order to determine if the electric discharge has a similar effect, Catania isolates parts of the aquarium with electricity that can penetrate obstacles. It placed a fish that had pierced the brain's spinal cord on one side of the barrier, while the battery was on the other side. The worker fed the lice for the battery, which would cause it to send electrical pulses. The electric pulse will pass through the obstacle and hit the fish, causing the latter to produce a strong muscle contraction.
In order to determine whether the discharge is acting on the prey's motoneuron - that is, the muscles that control the muscles - or on the muscle itself, Catania puts two stinging fish on the side of the obstacle: one of them: The fish was injected with saline and the other one was injected with arrow poison (the poison of the arrow poison saddle), an anesthetic that attacks the nervous system. Electric shocks cause the muscles of the saline-injected fish to contract continuously, and the fish injected with the arrow poison no longer contract muscles after the efficacy has begun to function. This shows that the electric discharge is acting on the motoneurons, which is the same principle as the Taser gun discharge.
Catania then paid attention to the way electricians used electric signals to capture prey. Electrophoresis is a nocturnal animal and its vision is not good, so it needs other ways to monitor hidden prey. The biologist determined that the two-pulse or three-shot pulse emitted by the electric gong was consistent with the electrical signals sent by the muscle neurons to the muscles to produce extremely rapid muscle contractions.
"Generally speaking, humans or animals cannot achieve the simultaneous contraction of all muscles of the body. However, this is the consequence of the electric signal of the electric car," said Catania. The combination of electric shocks that are extremely sensitive to water movements and the contraction of the whole body's muscles will cause the body of the prey to twitch, thereby producing electric motions that can be perceived by the electrician. Catania concludes that electricians use these signals to locate hidden prey.
To test this hypothesis, Catania connected the fish that had pierced the spinal cord to a stimulator. It placed the fish in transparent plastic bags to protect them from electric shocks. He found that if the electric shock signal was released, if he immediately stimulated the fish to twitch, the electric shock would attack. However, if the fish does not respond to signals, the battery will not attack. This result supports the previous view that electric shocks use electric shock systems to force prey to reveal their position.
"If you think about it carefully, you'll find that it's incredible that it's amazing," said Catania. "It can use its own electrical system to remotely control the body of its prey. If a fish is hidden near it, the battery can force it to twitch and leak its position information. If the battery is ready for fishing, it will immediately paralyze. The fish were unable to escape." This study was supported by the Prader Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences, the Guggenheim Prize, and the National Science Foundation.
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