The ocean can be a cold place to call home. Mammals like seals stay warm by enveloping themselves in a layer of thick fur and blubber. Cephalopods — the group of (mostly) ultrasmart mollusks that include squid and octopuses — don’t have that luxury.
Instead, some octopuses and squid cope by altering their bodies on the molecular level.
When water temperatures inside their tank dropped by 10 degrees Celsius, California two-spot octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides) changed what proteins they produce by editing vast swathes of their own RNA, researchers report June 8 in Cell.
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