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Episode 3 - Plantnimal Discovered, NASA = The Office?, Why Being Awake Is Bad for You

by Christopher Mims on December 3, 2008

Like the vampire-eating supervampires in Blade II, a soul-sucking nudibranch that feeds on the sun-sucking organelles of plants has proved that being an animal doesn’t mean that you can’t be born with plant genes that somehow got mixed up in your nuclear DNA zillions of years ago, or that keeping part of your victim alive inside your gut is beyond the powers of the ‘lowly’ sea slug.

Plantnimal, NASA hijinks and a compelling physiological explanation for why we sleep comprise the third installment of Grand Unified Weekly, up now at SlateV. If you’re not watching, you need to turn in your AAAS membership card.


Awesome theme song Comrade Elvis courtesy Hilotrons and Kelp Records, awesome co-host Christie Nicholson courtesy Scientific American

 

0301 - Swamp Sea Thing is part plant, part animal

0302 - Sleep: the brain’s anti-backup software

According to Dr. Chiara Cirelli, conductor of this research, everything from fruit flies to humans sleeps in pretty much the same way, which suggests that sleep performs a physiological function so basic that no creature can elude it.

  • Is Sleep Essential? - Dr. Cirelli’s stellar (and open-access!) roundup of the evidence for and against, and how this data points to the ultimate function of sleep
  • Science News reports on the presentation at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting on which this segment is based

0303 - NASA news, courtesy of Dunder Mifflin


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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Lisa 12.06.08 at 8:39 am

O.k., like, anyone else think the photosynthesizing nudibranch is way creepy? Then again, “green men from the future” might mean photosynthesizing people. See, it’s already going to happen!

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