Monday, January 14, 2013

Organisms with Super Powers?

Hey, these aren't super powers; it's biology! Anyway, the blog Southern Fried Science has a popular post on five organisms who have "powers" similar, in the author's view, to the super powers of comic book heroes. You've got Bdelloid rotifers that are unisexual and caeable for going dormant for extraordinary periods and can survive in space and when they come out of dormancy in a new environment can absorb DNA or local organisms adapting to the new environment. You've got a deep sea snail that can absord iron sulfide into its shell and foot, making them metallic and aiding their survival at great depths. You've got the parasitic barnacle Sacculina which takes over the blue crabs sexual system replacing it with its own, changes the crabs mating behaviors to mate with other crabs infected with Sacculina, and, if the infected crab was a male it will change its sex to make it a female to care for the Succulina's eggs, which grow on the crab. Then you've got octopi whose ability to shape shift is now well known from numerous videos. And you've got black mold that was altered by radiation at Chernobyl and now "feeds" on radiation.

That actually is a tiny fraction of the weird and incredible things that organisms on Earth do that seem like super powers. And, while the Sacculina parasite may gross me you out, its about the tip of gross parasites. Hey, here's a video of a roundworm emerging from the stomach of a dead spider. Um, enjoy!

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