A Genetic Oddity May Give Octopuses and Squids Their Smarts.

[elleng]

'Coleoid cephalopods, a group encompassing octopuses, squid and cuttlefish, are the most intelligent invertebrates: Octopuses can open jars, squid communicate with their own Morse code and cuttlefish start learning to identify prey when they’re just embryos.

In fact, coleoids are the only “animal lineage that has really achieved behavioral sophistication” other than vertebrates, said Joshua Rosenthal, a senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. This sophistication could be related to a quirk in how their genes work, according to new research from Dr. Rosenthal and Eli Eisenberg, a biophysicist at Tel Aviv University.

In the journal Cell on Thursday, the scientists reported that octopuses, squid and cuttlefish make extensive use of RNA editing, a genetic process thought to have little functional significance in most other animals, to diversify proteins in their nervous system. And natural selection seems to have favored RNA editing in coleoids, even though it potentially slows the DNA-based evolution that typically helps organisms acquire beneficial adaptations over time.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/science/octopus-squid-intelligence-rna-editing.html?

[longship]

1. That's why they are on my "do not eat or kill" list.

Along with whales, all primates, and elephants (plus some others).

[bettyellen]

2. Cool- thanks!

[librechik]

3. I love squids!

https://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/08/the_octopus_gen/

"As ENV already noted, the latest organism to have its genome sequenced has confounded that expectation: the octopus, whose genome was recently reported in Nature. It turns out to be so unlike other mollusks and other invertebrates that it’s being called “alien” by the scientists who worked on that project.

One article on the subject was titled “Don’t freak out, but scientists think octopuses ‘might be aliens’ after DNA study“:

Not to send you into a meltdown or anything but octopuses are basically ‘aliens’ — according to scientists.
Researchers have found a new map of the octopus genetic code that is so strange that it could be actually be an “alien”.


interesting stuff

[Marcuse]

4. Ackbar

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