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  • 2016-06-19 (xsd:date)
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  • Does Octopus DNA Come from Space? (en)
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  • In June 2016, a number of web sites reported that, according to recent study, researchers had examined octopus DNA and discovered it was either alien or from space: Other dubious online site made similar assertions, claiming that the study showed beyond a doubt that octupuses don't come from the planet Earth: The underlying study did not assert extraterrestrial origins for the octopus, however: The study had been published in August 2015, and it was unclear why multiple web sites suddenly picked up and ran with a completely erroneous interpretation of it nearly a year after it first appeared. The alien angle seems to have originated with a press release, which (like the study) was published in 2015: It was clear that Ragsdale meant that the octopus was an alien metaphorically, not literally. But, as is often the case, a number of web outlets seized upon the use of the word to spin up stories without first reviewing the source material: The words alien, space, or even Earth didn't appear in the August 2015 study of octopus gene sequencing. However, a tongue-in-cheek remark made later by one researcher was widely taken out of context to suggest otherwise. Coincidentally, a controversial paper subsequently published in the March 2018 issue of the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology (Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic?) examined whether some aspects of evolutionary theory might be better explained by positing that the precursors of some Earth organisms could have been extraterrestrial in nature. The paper offered an example which suggested -- but did not prove -- that one possible explanation for why octopuses (cephalopods) are very different from their presumed evolutionary ancestors (nautiloids) might be that their genes came from the cosmos at large: The paper maintained we should not discount the notion that octopus genes may have been extraterrestrial imports which arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago: However, the paper also noted that such an extraterrestrial origin as an explanation of emergence of course runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm. And as Ephrat Livni observed in Quartz, other scientists don't necessarily find the paper's ruminations something to be taken seriously: (en)
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