Scientists declare octopi life from another world

Plant genome size is a bit of a misdirection with regards to the C-value paradox, since one of the primary drivers of plant diversification is likely to have been random whole-genome doubling events. There’s something unstable about plant genomes that allows for successful doubling and even tripling of genome size in short periods of time.

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I am suspicious of the journal, though. Does anyone have a link to the disreputable journal database?

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Hell, why not inter-dimensional travel from an alternate earth dominated by octopi!

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Octopuses.

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Octopodes.

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Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrongity wrong-wrong wrong.

The inclusion of Chandra Wickramasinghe as co-author should have rung a warning bell. This is more panspermia nonsense. It’s science fiction, not science.

If octopodes were from space we should expect them to share NO genes with the rest of life on earth. We should expect them to have completely different metabolic systems, possibly using different amino acids or different bases or PNA instead of DNA or something like that.

There is no justification in the paper whatsoever for the absurd claims of extraterrestrial origins. Which do you think is more likely: alien life forms, a completely foreign tree of life, managed the ridiculously improbably journey to Earth, and survived, and flourished, and JUST HAPPENED to look like something that evolved here in terms of genetics, metabolism, and cellular biology; OR genes changed in the cephalopod lineage a little faster than these “scientists” think they should have?

Anyway, cephalopod fossil records are pretty extensive. We have good evidence of when cephalopods originated and from what, and the old ones look very little like modern octopodes and squids. They look like, frankly, snails whose foot has turned into several appendages.

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Yes, but apparently a bunch of “scientists” decided to say, “Hold my PCR reaction mixture”.

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And that’s why they’re full of grain. The Egyptopus people were processing semolina to make pasta for the glorification of the Divine Noodly One.

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I came to make this exact post. I leave satisfied.

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The journal is accepted by most of the reputable journal databases including Elsevier (ScienceDirect) and ResearchGate. The problem isn’t the journal, which is accredited by the NIH/NCBI. The problem is, like @Andrew_Glasgow points out, the authors pushing their previous hypothesis via intentional misinterpretation of data.

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But not squids. They are not too bright.

250px-Squidbillies_title_card

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pls tell me which graphic novel that is from?

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futurama-zoidberg-hooray

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futurama-zoidberg-crying

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The Express is not a reliable news source, it’s a rival of the Daily Mail with a similar editorial policy. The “science” reporting is also of a similar low quality to the Mail’s.

Does the article say if octopodes cause or cure cancer?

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Granted, but the next-biggest (known) genome is that of a lungfish, so large genomes definitely aren’t exclusive to plants.

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Under His Noodle.

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So the story should soon make it to the National Enquirer and similar rags. The cancer thing should pop up then.

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I agree it’s the thrust of what you say, but since we don’t have any other life with which to compare that of Earth’s, you can say that we should expect completely different amino acids and whatnot. It could well be that life is prevalent AND the only way it works is with these amino acids and whatnot. We simply do not know, so we can’t say which is more likely or even what he odds are.

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