What a Maze-Solving Oil drop tells Us of Intelligence

Written By Colin Barras, www.newscientist.com
January 25th, 2010

DYED pink and doped with acid, the small, inanimate drop of oil is deposited at the entrance to the maze - and immediately sets off towards the exit. A few minutes later, it emerges at the other end.

No one would equate this apparently astonishing problem-solving with intelligence. But new theories on human intelligence and the brain suggest the simple molecular processes governing the oil droplet's apparently smart behaviour may be fundamentally similar to those that govern how we act.

Click Here For The Full Story