from Hacker News

RNA editing is common in behaviorally sophisticated coleoid cephalopods (2017)

by gerbilly on 7/24/23, 10:38 PM with 29 comments

• by tomohelix on 7/25/23, 2:25 AM

  > RNA editing, a post-transcriptional process, allows the diversification of proteomes beyond the genomic blueprint; however it is infrequently used among animals for this purpose.

  If I had written this and showed it to my PhD advisor, I would have gotten an earful about how "what do you mean by... be specific... what about...", etc. My PI was a nitpicker. Poor fools whose papers had to be edited by him...

  That said, RNA splicing is perhaps the single most important RNA editing process in the entire eukaryotic world. And it is so widespread and universally conserved that you can put a human gene in a mouse and it would be spliced the same way. So I don't think RNA editing is something so rare.

• by whalesalad on 7/24/23, 11:28 PM

  the beauty of having root access, as demonstrated by nature

• by jerojero on 7/25/23, 1:44 AM

  They're cool but they're never taking over the planet. Suckers.

  On a more serious note, it's very interesting to see the different mechanisms that nature develops for adaptability.

  It seems like there's a trade off here between heredability and adaptability, with cephalopods favouring the second one. Meaning on a long scale their evolution might be slower but it allows them to overcome challenges on the short term more effectively. If I understood correctly, as I haven't read the whole thing yet.

• by gtsnexp on 7/25/23, 9:21 AM

  Here's a recent study employing modern imaging methods to observe and chart the activities in the brains of octopuses. It's quite surprising to find a high level of similarity with more advanced visual species.

  Functional organization of visual responses in the octopus optic lobe https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098222...

• by natnat on 7/25/23, 12:23 AM

  PAPERCLIP

• by throwaway72762 on 7/25/23, 1:12 AM

  We have so much to learn from them. They diverged from us so long ago.

• by Simon_O_Rourke on 7/25/23, 6:48 AM

  I for one welcome our new Cephalopod overlords, and remind them I could be useful in rounding up others to work in their underground sugar caves.

• by alchemist1e9 on 7/25/23, 1:04 AM

  Is there a connection to this and the supposed extraterrestrial retrovirus link to Cephalopods I’ve seen discussed within a Panspermia discussion?

  https://mindmatters.ai/2022/01/science-paper-could-octopuses...