Thanks BenLurkin.
Posted on 06/25/2022 6:52:06 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The research shows that the same "jumping genes" are active both in the human brain and in the brain of two species, Octopus vulgaris, the common octopus, and Octopus bimaculoides, the Californian octopus. This discovery could help us understand the secret of the intelligence of these fascinating organisms.
Sequencing the human genome revealed as early as 2001 that over 45% of it is composed of sequences called transposons, so-called "jumping genes" that, through molecular copy-and-paste or cut-and-paste mechanisms, can "move" from one point to another of an individual's genome, shuffling or duplicating. In most cases, these mobile elements remain silent: they have no visible effects and have lost their ability to move. Some are inactive because they have, over generations, accumulated mutations; others are intact, but blocked by cellular defense mechanisms. From an evolutionary point of view, even these fragments and broken copies of transposons can still be useful, as "raw matter" that evolution can sculpt.
Among these mobile elements, the most relevant are those belonging to the so-called LINE (Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements) family, found in a hundred copies in the human genome and still potentially active. It has been traditionally thought that LINEs' activity was just a vestige of the past, a remnant of the evolutionary processes that involved these mobile elements, but in recent years new evidence emerged showing that their activity is finely regulated in the brain. There are many scientists who believe that LINE transposons are associated with cognitive abilities such as learning and memory: they are particularly active in the hippocampus, the most important structure of our brain for the neural control of learning processes.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Apart from the details, that’s pretty much what I figured.
They don’t live long, why do they need such smarts?
Transhumanism ping
they’re aliens...
Not a transhumanism article.
Thanks BenLurkin.
Octopus also display problem-solving ability and tool use, despite most of them only living a couple of years (the giant Pacific octopus is the longest-lived at four years).
Octopus in captivity can learn to recognize individual people and be trained to perform a certain task to get a reward, like ringing a bell (with the bell rope left hanging in the water) to get a food treat.
Plus they can change the color and texture of their skin at will.
And since the have no skeleton, they are one of the world's greatest escape artists. They can squeeze through any hole large enough to admit their eyeballs.
Micheal Jordan must have evolved from co-joined twin octopuses.
“Octopus brain and human brain share the same ‘jumping genes’”
Maybe this also explains why so many humans have no backbone.
Any teenage girl can attest to the teenage male brain having octopus genes.
“...they’re aliens...”
Cthulhu Fhthagn!
Yog-Sothoth
“Remarkably Bright Creatures” is a book I’m reading about a woman’s relationship with an octopus at the Seattle Aquarium. Her son was drowned in Puget Sound so she went to work as a cleaning woman there, just to be close to creatures of the sea. Very sweet story—I bought it after my son died last November. He loved the Aquarium when he was a little kid and was especially taken with octopi.
In the book, the Octopus keeps getting out of its tank and “suctioning” around the floor to get better fish than he’ s usually given. He has thoughts and a voice. Knows he won’t live long, but wants better food to live as long as he can.
Sometimes, when I’ve slipped on very fine mud, I feeeel like an octopus.
Does that make me octo-gendered?
Initially called Junk DNA.
Thought to be a type of insulation against mutation.
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