The pistol shrimp is immune to its own powerful shock waves | Hacker News Reader

The pistol shrimp is immune to its own powerful shock waves

arstechnica.com

69 pointsTomte17 comments

I first heard of the pistol shrimp a few days ago when I read the makers of Star Control 2 have formed a company, called Pistol Shrimp games (https://pistolshrimpgames.com), to make a Star Control sequel (technically "UQM" since they don't own the name Star Control)

I thought it was a fictitious alien creature they'd invented, but nope. Nature is pretty amazing.

There is another shrimp which allegedly has truly 'alien' vision, due to 12 to 16 kinds of color receptors:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#Eyes

Moreover, when I saw that headline and that it was from Ars Technica I figured it was going to be an interview with them. Imagine my surprise.

Someone better bring this up on the next livestream.

Thanks to the Shadow Warrior reboot, I discovered there's an animal called flying wild hog. Turns out pigs can fly with sufficient trust.

Pretty sure that one isn’t a real animal

Well technically, for a short amount of time...

https://youtu.be/O1TGRTuqDgU

This reminds me of how Marvel super-characters are usually immune to their own powers, or relatives' powers. Cyclops, for example, can't accidentally blast his arm off by looking down while eye-blasting a Sentinel. He is also immune to his brothers' powers (even though quite different), and vice versa.

(Now that I think about it, I don't think this is the norm with DC. Superman can use his heat vision on Supergirl, and vice versa; each is largely resistant to it, but because Kryptonians are more or less invulnerable to anything non-magic, as opposed to some special immunity against Kryptonian powers.)

That's referred to as a "Required Secondary Superpower." In the superhero reconstruction web serial Worm, these are practically de facto and even have their own jargon assigned to them. Some characters find the secondary aspect useful all on its own!

IRL, snakes tend to be immune to their own venom because of the frequency of bites from their own species. On the other hand, for some creatures, other defenses like tail-dropping or gut-expelling are expensive moves. But the first few members of a species developing a new characteristic, well, the self-defense might not be there yet. The first bombardier beetles might have been very unhappy, even at a fraction of what that defense might grow to.

Can the pistol shrimp produce Sonoluminescence? Either way, cool! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoluminescence

It was very refreshing to find the rain in the very first paragraph

Was there a typo in your comment? “Find the rain” is poetic and I like it, but I suspect you meant something like “refreshing to see that the primary source is linked in the first paragraph.” (If so, I feel the same way!)

EDIT: in fact, I encourage everyone to click through to the paper: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)...

It surprised me for two reasons. One is that it’s responsive on mobile, unlike a pdf. And the other is that it has embedded videos which are presented as part of the research, which you’ll otherwise miss.

I kind of want to find a reason to say “find the rain” in conversation now.

reason->autocorrect

Aha! Thank you. Agreed — the whole article is great.

In fact, if it has the ability Water Absorb, it heals 1⁄4 of its maximum HP when hit by a Water-type attack.

Sadly I don't think Clauncher or Clawitzer can have Water Absorb :(

No Mega Launcher defeats the whole purpose of that mon!

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