Sensor - Sensors in Nature

Sensors in Nature

Further information: Sense

All living organisms contain biological sensors with functions similar to those of the mechanical devices described. Most of these are specialized cells that are sensitive to:

  • Light, motion, temperature, magnetic fields, gravity, humidity, moisture, vibration, pressure, electrical fields, sound, and other physical aspects of the external environment
  • Physical aspects of the internal environment, such as stretch, motion of the organism, and position of appendages (proprioception)
  • Environmental molecules, including toxins, nutrients, and pheromones
  • Estimation of biomolecules interaction and some kinetics parameters
  • Internal metabolic milieu, such as glucose level, oxygen level, or osmolality
  • Internal signal molecules, such as hormones, neurotransmitters, and cytokines
  • Differences between proteins of the organism itself and of the environment or alien creatures.

Read more about this topic:  Sensor

Famous quotes containing the word nature:

    “No such sermons have come to us here out of England, in late years, as those of this preacher,—sermons to kings, and sermons to peasants, and sermons to all intermediate classes. It is in vain that John Bull, or any of his cousins, turns a deaf ear, and pretends not to hear them: nature will not soon be weary of repeating them. There are words less obviously true, more for the ages to hear, perhaps, but none so impossible for this age not to hear.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)