Just when we thought octopuses couldn’t be any weirder, it turns out that they and their cephalopod brethren evolve differently from nearly every other organism on the planet.
In a surprising twist, scientists have discovered that octopuses,
along with some squid and cuttlefish species, routinely edit their RNA
(ribonucleic acid) sequences to adapt to their environment.
This is weird because that’s really not how adaptations usually
happen in multicellular animals. When an organism changes in some
fundamental way, it typically starts with a genetic mutation – a change
to the DNA.
Really interesting short read for those interested in evolution.
stupid non-cephalopodes: evolve through a relatively stable updating of genetic matrices
grand cephalopod savants: biohacking into the nature mainframe and leaving eldritch comments in the engine’s source. what the fuck is a “stable release”
apparently one whale years ago was observed doing this for hours and now more and more whales in the area are seen copying it so we think it’s a whole new behavior and it seems to be a response to shrinking food sources.
Instead of expending any energy actively hunting, the whale just holds its mouth open wherever fish are being hunted by birds. To escape the birds, the fish try to hide in the whale’s mouth because it’s a darker area that looks like shelter.
…They’re turning into giant, sea-mammal pitcher plants.
What is interesting is there is a heron (black heron) that hunts via similar methods (using shade as bait for fish). I do not think it is a learned behavior for them though. Paralel evolution is buck wild. You can reach similar outcomes through wildly different evolutionary methods and paths. Eg – in whales it is their big brains at work – with herons it is instictual – and with pitcher plants it is automatic.
Yeah little creatures love to hide so a number of predators have taken advantage of that and what’s EXTRA fucked up is that another example includes a starfish:
A wyvern is a four-limbed dragon with
the first pair of legs extending into wings. That’s a distinction that
driftwood artist James Doran-Webb likes to make when presenting his
sculptures. The first wyvern he made required an expansion of the studio
and a huge metal frame. It’s a huge wooden creature that’s perched on a
trunk of a long-dead tree.
Another driftwood wyvern stands on a
gazebo made from reclaimed steel and upcycled water bottles. It made an
appearance in the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show 2015. The piece is
called Wyvern’s Folly and weighs 4 tons!
James Doran Webb is based in the
Philippines. He works with many local initiatives aimed at preserving
the environment and replanting trees. Webb buys his sculpture material
from local gatherers, aiding their villages. Aside from wyverns, Webb
has also made many other (and smaller) sculptures of galloping horses,
goats and other animals.
are you saying that engagement rings aren’t just cool rocks
They sloth is my favorite
STORY TIME!
Ok so when I was doing a security job on a college campus, the geology club on said campus was having their mineral and fossil sale (which is where the club gets the vast majority of its funds for the year). They had some really cool shit but their sales techniques were… uh, they were bad, just really terrible. They set up the tables, put all their stuff out, hung a sign up… and then sat there, occasionally mentioning quietly to one or two passersby “Hey we’re having our mineral and fossil sale if you want any.” Very boring, overly factual, not very attention grabbing.
Now I’m a fuckin nerd so I’m all over this shit (the sale was literally a foot away from my security post so I wasn’t even getting in trouble for spending literal hours ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the really cool stuff they had). And me being the type of nerd who must SHARE ALL THE THINGS when I find cool stuff (and who also has 18 years of customer service/retail experience to draw on), I start trying to get some of the literal hundreds of students walking by to get some of the cool things. The club only needed a couple hundred bucks and we were on the largest campus in the state so they should have been making their goal easy but almost no one was biting. So my “must share the thing” nerdiness teamed up with my “must help all the people”-ness and I did my best to pitch in and get them more sales.
Now, it was two days before valentines and a lot of the people walking by were dudes. So I start trying to get them interested with comments like “hey come check out the cool stuff you could get for your bae!”
One group of dudes paused but it didn’t seem like they were gonna stop and get any of the cool things, so I go “No, seriously, chicks dig this shit, you literally cannot go wrong here. There’s fossils and cute little carvings of manta rays and kitties, and literal gemstones here; that box is full of fucking EMERALDS that are 3 for $5. GET. SOME.”
They didn’t believe me that the ladies would go nuts for “a bunch of shiny rocks.” So I decide to prove it to them. And in the most booming voice I can muster (and I can muster quite a bit after a decade of choir classes) and yell “THEY HAVE SHINY ROCKS OVER HERE AND THEY’RE REALLY COOL!”
Literally instantly, three separate groups of ladies look straight at the tables and make a beeline for them, all of them saying some variation of “Wait, did you say shiny rocks? WHERE?! WHAT KIND?! OMG!” Suddenly a dozen or so different gals (and several dudes), who seconds ago were only thinking about getting to class, stopped in their tracks to detour to the table full of shiny rocks. Only two left without buying at least one thing.
The dudes I’d been talking to before were bewildered but convinced, so they start looking for the best shiny rocks they can get to give their SOs. Several of them came back a few days later to inform me that my seemingly ludicrous advice of “get them shiny rocks” had gotten them laid or scored them a date.
So, remember kids, GET THE BAE A SHINY ROCK. That shit WORKS.
