octopus

Open access: Abstract: In eukaryotic cells, with the exception of the specialized genomes of mitochondria and plastids, all genetic information is sequestered within the nucleus. This arrangement imposes constraints on how the information can be tailored for different cellular regions, particularly in cells with complex morphologies like neurons. Although messenger RNAs (mRNAs), and the proteins that they encode, can be differentially sorted between cellular regions, the information itself does not change. RNA editing by adenosine deamination can alter the genome’s blueprint by recoding mRNAs; however, this process too is thought to be restricted to the nucleus. In this work, we show that ADAR2 (adenosine deaminase that acts on RNA), an RNA editing enzyme, is expressed outside of the nucleus in Read More ›

We know that the octopus is smart but the hardware “has little in common with the mammalian design”: While the octopus has a large central brain in its head, it also has a unique network of smaller ‘brains’ within each of its arms. It’s just what these creatures need to coordinate the mind-boggling complexity of eight prehensile arms and hundreds of sensitive suckers, which provide the octopus with the equivalent of opposable thumbs (roboticists have been taking note)… For instance, an octopus escaping a predator can detach an arm that will happily continue crawling around for up to 10 minutes. Indeed, until an experiment by Kuba and colleagues in 2011, some suspected the arms’ movements were independent of their central Read More ›