Preserving Human Ingenuity for a Future Planet Ruled By Octopuses

These days I worry about the future of humanity on this planet. But as always, it’s worth looking for the positive, and so here we present evidence that even if we wipe ourselves out, Oxford scientists suggest that our successors will be cephalopods. With such brainy inheritors of the planet, perhaps some things of beauty, such as music, might survive. Enter engineer and musician Mattias Krantz, who in the video below, purchases a small octopus at a fish market, and over the course of many months, figures out how to teach it to play the piano. One revelation from this charming story is that Krantz’s learning curve seemed harder than that of Tako the octopus. I, for one, welcome our piano-playing cephalopod overlords.

David Crotty

David Crotty is the Executive Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Founded in 1933, CSHL Press is an internationally renowned publisher of books, journals, and electronic media, and is a division of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an innovator in life science research and the education of scientists, students, and the public. Previously, David was a Senior Consultant at Clarke & Esposito, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategic issues related to professional and academic publishing and information services. David was the Editorial Director, Journals Policy for Oxford University Press. He oversaw journal policy across OUP’s journals program, drove technological innovation, and served as an information officer. David acquired and managed a suite of research society-owned journals with OUP, and before that was the Executive Editor for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, where he created and edited new science books and journals, along with serving as a journal Editor-in-Chief. He has served on the Board of Directors for the STM Association, the Society for Scholarly Publishing and CHOR, Inc., as well as The AAP-PSP Executive Council. David received his PhD in Genetics from Columbia University and did developmental neuroscience research at Caltech before moving from the bench to publishing.

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4 Thoughts on "Preserving Human Ingenuity for a Future Planet Ruled By Octopuses"

Amazing! For more hand wringing about super intelligent animals from our nightmares, check out the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The second book is all about cephalopods, including bold statements about the propriety of ‘octopi’ vs ‘octopuses’