A Hawaiian creation myth suggests that our world emerged from the ruins of another. Everything we see was formed anew, but for one survivor from a previous age: the octopus.
Technically mollusks, with large brains that are organized in a distinctly different way from ours, octopuses may be the planet’s smartest invertebrates. Many-limbed, totally boneless and with skin color and texture that can change in a heartbeat, octopuses seem downright otherworldly. To meet one is to come as close as we can get to an intelligent alien.
Self-Editing: Octopuses can make significant changes to their RNA — the messengers that ferry instructions from DNA to cells. This ability helps them adapt to the cold, and may even play a role in why they’re so clever.
Octopia? In 2017, researchers reported that members of one octopus species lived in close proximity to each other, the first time such behavior has been ...
