Quote of the Day: Tenure and Sea Squirts

I love this quote from philosopher Daniel Dennett (from 1991): "The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it fi nds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it! (It's rather like getting tenure.)"

(Tip of the cap to this paper by Pablo Echenique-Robba. And thanks to Easter Eggs in Scientific Papers to pointing me to this paper. (I might have actually seen it before, but I didn't pay any attention to it until I saw it on that blog.)