Octopuses just got weirder: Scientists have discovered they can redesign their brains when they get chilly...

[Michie]

Hyperintelligent octopuses just got weirder: scientists have found the cephalopods can recode their brain when temperatures change

Octopuses are among the smartest animals on the planet—and some of the strangest. They have about the same number of neurons as dogs, but more than half of those cells are distributed across the slippery cephalopods’ eight arms rather than contained in a central brain.

As researchers report on June 8 in Cell, the neural anomalies only get more bizarre from there. Octopuses, they found, have the ability to recode their neurons in response to temperature shifts so those cells produce different proteins. Like people adjusting their clothing to match the weather outside, octopuses edit their RNA, which is a genetic molecule that carries DNA’s instructions to produce proteins—the workhorses of cells.

The researchers suspect those “brain edits” help octopuses adapt to heat or cold when the seasons change. And they do this to “an extraordinary extent,” says co-senior author Joshua Rosenthal, a biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

RNA editing happens when an outside force activates certain enzymes inside the body’s cells that then make chemical changes to the RNA. Depending on the changes, the cells produce different forms, or isoforms, of proteins. Because RNA is a transient molecule, any changes made to the genetic information it carries will not be permanent—a feature that, in theory, makes it a powerful tool for on-the-go acclimation to changing environmental conditions.

Continued below.

Octopuses Redesign Their Own Brain When They Get Chilly

Hyperintelligent octopuses just got weirder: scientists have found the cephalopods can recode their brain when temperatures change

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[timewerx]

Hyperintelligent octopuses just got weirder: scientists have found the cephalopods can recode their brain when temperatures change

Octopuses are among the smartest animals on the planet—and some of the strangest. They have about the same number of neurons as dogs, but more than half of those cells are distributed across the slippery cephalopods’ eight arms rather than contained in a central brain.

As researchers report on June 8 in Cell, the neural anomalies only get more bizarre from there. Octopuses, they found, have the ability to recode their neurons in response to temperature shifts so those cells produce different proteins. Like people adjusting their clothing to match the weather outside, octopuses edit their RNA, which is a genetic molecule that carries DNA’s instructions to produce proteins—the workhorses of cells.

The researchers suspect those “brain edits” help octopuses adapt to heat or cold when the seasons change. And they do this to “an extraordinary extent,” says co-senior author Joshua Rosenthal, a biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

RNA editing happens when an outside force activates certain enzymes inside the body’s cells that then make chemical changes to the RNA. Depending on the changes, the cells produce different forms, or isoforms, of proteins. Because RNA is a transient molecule, any changes made to the genetic information it carries will not be permanent—a feature that, in theory, makes it a powerful tool for on-the-go acclimation to changing environmental conditions.

Continued below.

Octopuses Redesign Their Own Brain When They Get Chilly

Hyperintelligent octopuses just got weirder: scientists have found the cephalopods can recode their brain when temperatures change

www.scientificamerican.com

Octopus might achieve intelligence "singularity" like what might happen in AI.

This may sound even weirder. I once encountered Jesus in a dream and He appeared to me in the form of an 8-limbed cephalopod! It really creeped me out and didn't recognize Him at first obviously. So the thing talked to me and told me "I am He, come closer" and also told me "I'm just goofing around!" That's the time I know that's Jesus. He often changes form when I see Him in dreams. Ancient scriptures that didn't make the Censor also tell that Jesus can take the form of other creatures as one of His supernatural abilities. There is a possible mention of it in at least one verse in the Bible.

Why a cephalopod of all animals, now I know!