I was surprised how simultaneously RF electronics work is 'easy' (you have to fight to avoid interference) but also 'hard' (in that its actually quite difficult to, e.g., 'detect if there are signals').
Maybe electrochem is more robust against this compared to silicon?
Like, a lot of the interference issues with electronics seem to be when you are using a kind of voltage rail, signal rail, ground rail approach and stuff just seems to leak through the rails. But if you had independent power supplies every 100 microns...
I guess the other matter is, what are the natural signal sources that you'd want to be sensitive to and what are their frequencies? If you want to be selective to something over, say, 100kHz that seems difficult with the natural oscillation frequencies we seem to see in biology.
Not sure if neurons could do this though, afaik our light-sensitive cells operate by photons changing the structure of certain molecules, which is converted into a stimulus. Long EM interacts with our bodies more like a wave, and probably wouldnt work with a localised mechanism like that
Maybe instead we could have many neurons chained together with a small amount of metal, we measure the current somehow, then our brain could do something like a fourier transform
yeah afaik both the invertebrate and vertebrate lines use different receptor types but they both hop up electrons in pigments which then triggers the neuron. and you can't do that for long EM waves at all, i think? my impression is you do need something like an antenna.
i gotta research how lateral line sensing systems in fish work. they do electromagnetism, not EM radiation but maybe there's something mechanically useful there.
and maybe direct magnetic north sensing in birds would be relevant too? iirc that does use metal inclusions. maybe similar to antennas!
This is true, although microwave oven EM is still somewhat short (λ≈12cm) so I wonder how much radio waves (λ>30cm) would interact. Still, I didn't think microwaves were *that* long, so it's plausible
i wonder! i looked through some EM weaponry to see if there was any indication of interesting interaction mechanisms, but it seems to mostly be in low RF range or microwave.
Comments
Maybe electrochem is more robust against this compared to silicon?
but then you have a second problem, which is emitting radio waves...
i've not encountered it but i'm not very knowledgeable!
so maybe instead of a small number of pigments (3 or 4 for most vertebrates) you could evolve a spectrum of resonant compounds?
and maybe direct magnetic north sensing in birds would be relevant too? iirc that does use metal inclusions. maybe similar to antennas!
https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/a/119952
I'm imagining bioluminescent nodules within a creature that can be tested for splitting, which would look pretty cool
This also explores molecules as antennae:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4713408/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRvSiwXKGIo