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One Variety of Sea Slugs Cuts Out the Energy Middleman
dragonturtle69 writes with this story, short on details but interesting: "These sea slugs, Elysia chlorotica, have evolved the ability to gain energy via photosynthesis. Forget about genetic modifications for sports enhancements. I want to be able to never need to eat again — or do I?"
That was my totally favorite upgrade in Mail Order Monsters - recharge from the sub!
meh
I want to be able to never need to eat again -- or do I?
I'l like the ability to never HAVE to eat again, but I wouldn't want to lose the ability to eat at all. Eating is enjoyable. One would hope that you could control the photosynthesis to keep from getting too fat, though.
Free Martian Whores!
Any other questions that could be easily answered by playing Starcraft?
Stop it, stop it, it's fine. I will *destroy* you.
As everybody knows....
It's not easy being green.
No I didn't read the article, MSNBC rarely loads properly here at work.
I believe that saying it gains energy via photosynthesis is incorrect. Photosynthesis causes a chemical reaction that converts Carbon Dioxide and Water (CO2 and H2O) into Sugar and Oxygen (C6H12O6 and O2). The sugar is then metabolized (correct term?) into energy.
I want to be able to consume as many extra calories as I like, and then radiate the excess as visible light, with radiant area, spectrum and direction under my conscious control.
Or, at least, I'd like to be able to metabolize my food and store excess energy as electric charge, easily transferred to whatever devices are handy.
Once you've "eaten enough algae to steal the necessary chloroplasts", you'll be good to go!
I would happily endure eating algae for X days/weeks/months in order to get photosynthesis going in my body. I realize that I'd have to start going outside, but it sounds like a fair trade off to me.
That you'll still have to eat something and eating like a plant means eating ... fertilizer.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Soylent green makes people...er no, green people make soylent...or, soylent people made green (shrug)
...for my car. That would be ironic, wouldn't it Alanis?
In a normal plant cell is the chlorophyll produces by the cell and then shuttled to the chloroplast to be used or does the chloroplast itself produce the pigment within it's own membrane? If the latter, I would imagine this gene in the slug is redundant as the creature has to eat algae for the chloroplasts anyways.
Now they just need to produce a miraculous substance to be dubbed "Adam"...
"We are looking for the Nuclear Wessles."
Means you'll be sucking up ... "fertilizer".
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
This might be used to supply a maintenance level of energy such that if your activity level was relatively low and in an environment where you could get enough sun and water, it might keep you alive until you can get to a better situation but I doubt it could supply enough energy to keep an athletic person performing at their peak level. For instance, I doubt we'd see someone be able to do the Tour de France on self supplied sugars.
I could see some basement dwelling computer nerds trying this and setting up enough brights lights and such that the local police might think it was a grow-op in operation.
Wouldn't that be a fluke that only needed to happen once? They do point out that the animals also have to get chloroplasts by eating plant material (these are not passed on to offspring), so perhaps they meant to say they aren't sure how they appropriate the chloroplasts. I would agree that's a really good question.
Some species of Sea Slugs have another similar interesting ability -- to adsorb and host nematocysts (stinging cells) from jellyfish and hydrozoans they've eaten, and use them for their own defense. The mechanism is substantially different (foreign cells are sequestered in specialized sacs, compared to the intracellular hosting of an organelle) though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaucus_atlanticus
Couldn't you just form an symbiotic relationship with algae or photoplankton, allowing them to live inside you for protection in return for using them for energy? Aren't there already animals that do this?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Building and repairing too. And well, there are those that enjoy the taste of some food. Anyway, having an extra source of energy won't hurt, you dont always need to be building and repairing, or at least could do it in a less urgent way than for getting the energy needed to live.
How can I get my Electric Bolt 3 without ADAM?
Is this actual, observed evolution?
Is this the proof creationists are always demanding?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Especially in Third world countries where there is plenty of sun, not much food and not much to do other than subsistence living,. At least it would be enough to get a lot of starving humans through the dry famine months that they get in thrid world countries near the equator.
Sure their skin would be green, but that beats starving to death.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
No more Sushi, no more Chocolate, no more Carrabba's Cozze in bianco. Now if it were something you could switch on and off I would be all for it. No more military chow hall food. I could list more things you wouldn't have to eat but that alone is enough.
FTA: "The sneaky slugs seem to have stolen the genes that enable this skill from algae that they've eaten."
I'm gonna go find and chow down on some ninjas right now, so I gain Real Ultimate Power!!
Slugs have been around for millions of years!
Of course the problem with photosynthesis is it doesn't produce energy that quickly so it'd probably be used by slow moving animals like that. Here's a link http://www.nhm.ku.edu/inverts/ebooks/intro.html
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
I want to emit light. at will. So I don't need a flashlight, or could get a job as an organic tanning booth and loose weight at the same time. Or, dare I say, sparkle when outdoors.
if you take time to think how much of our time passes while doing mandatory eating, strenous digesting and dealing with the excrement and crapping it, you would be appalled.
in addition, a good deal of energy we take in by eating is spent on digesting the food itself. check your body in an atlas. almost 1/3 of the internal organs are allocated to digestion.
imagine cutting out the middleman.
Read radical news here
i've heard about this slug a few years ago. How is it news?
Yes, corals do this. Contrary to popular belief, corals are not plants but animals living in a symbiotic relationship with algae.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Just try not to get Wonder Boy killed off will ya?
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Eating the brains of our slain foes is probably as close as we'll ever get to a Highlander quickening. These slugs are already workin' their way up the ladder, and they just might be coming for YOUR brains in a few years....
I too think that ABC Family are a bunch of sea slugs for having canceled The Middleman.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
So, the fatter you get, the more skin, then more energy from the sun, more fat, more skin, ect...
Did Mark McGwire use steroids?
That green chick in the latest Star Trek didn't seem SLUGgish, and I'm assuming she was capable of photosythesis. You would probably see her running around outside nekked most of the time, which is just fine with me. The problem with me being green and nekked outside with the likes of her is that I'd be WOOD most of the time and I might be mistaken for a tree.
Just implant this gene through vaccination and the world food problems are solved!
...having a + and - pole could...
According to TFA: 'In fact, the slugs incorporate the genetic material so well, they pass it on to further generations of slugs." Isn't this the long-discredited (allegedly) Lamarckism? Passing on acquired characteristics to the next generation is Lamarckism. And if this isn't Lamarckism, could someone explain why I am wrong? And how can there be 210 comments and, as far as I can tell, no one else noticed this?
"In fact, the slugs incorporate the genetic material so well, they pass it on to further generations of slugs."
This is huge news. A demonstration of Lamarckism in action.
Roger Ebert recently wrote about his life after surgery. He can no longer take anything by mouth. I can't imagine life without taste, but he lives it.
... now back to the bit mines.
I hate it when it's phrased like that.
i wish i could stop
....and it taste like chicken
There's so much about animal biology we don't understand.