Human beings can detect a tremendous range of visual and olfactory stimuli.
The strongest stimulus they can tolerate may be more than a trillion times
as intense as the weakest they can detect. Still, there are many kinds
of signals in the world that people cannot detect directly.
| NSES Content Standard C
Life Science: The behavior of organisms Grades 9-12, page 187 Multicellular animals have nervous systems to generate behavior. Nervous systems are formed from specialized cells that conduct signals rapidly through the long cell extensions that make up nerves. The nerve cells communicate with each other by secreting specific excitatory and inhibitory molecules. In sense organs, specialized cells detect light, sound, and specific chemicals and enable animals to monitor what is going on in the world around them. |