In 2010, Paul the Octopus famously seemed to predict the outcome of eight out of eight World Cup games. But alas, he passed away soon after, depriving the world of his predictive powers. However, this past week at an AAAS talk we were given another reason to pay attention to these intelligent cephalopods. Rafe Sagarin, marine ecologist at the University of Arizona’s Institute of the Environment and author of a new book “Learning from the Octopus: How Secrets from Nature Can Help Us Fight Terrorism, Natural Disasters, and Disease,” argued that the octopus can teach nations a lot about how to keep themselves secure, based on its long record of successful adaptation. (more…)