What I Love About Planet Earth
This creature…
Jan Michels/Christian-Albrechts-Universitat zu KielResearchers have sequenced the genome of the common water flea, Daphnia, shown in this false-color micrograph. About 35 percent of the genes are brand new to science.
About 35 percent of the genes are brand new to science?? (The creature has — ulp! — far more genes that we do.)
And the scamp — no larger than a grain of rice, but tastier — can do incredible things: create a suit of armor to ward off attackers, send hemoglobin coursing through its body when under stress, and of course that great trick: parthenogenesis.
Isn’t it only a matter of time before some high school student is bitten by a radioactive daphnia?
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