

Bizarre sea slug is half plant, half animal - absconditus
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/pets-animals/stories/bizarre-sea-slug-is-half-plant-half-animal-0

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ryanwaggoner
Any chance of genetic modification so that I too can utilize photosynthesis? I
love food, but it'd be nice to not have to worry if I was stranded on a
deserted island in the tropics.

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jacquesm
You could breathe your homegrown oxygen too that way!

On a more serious note, the sun puts out about 1KW per square meter of
receiver that is exactly perpendicular to the incident rays, in full sunlight.
So theoretically there is enough power there, but in practice photo-synthesis
is not efficient enough to make this happen, typically somewhere around 5% of
the energy gets captured, and that's for a very dark plant. So if your cross
section towards the sun is .2 m^2 and you convert at 5% efficiency then you
can expect about 10W from that in usable energy. There is a reason leaves are
relatively flat and can change orientation.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency>

It's not easy, being green.

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JeanPierre
This brings up a somewhat more scary discussion: It's more efficient to be a
cybernetic organism than a gene-modified human with genes from plants.

If I get this correct, this (cited) Wikipedia-article says that solar cells
with a 0.01 m^2 surface area would produce approximately 1.4 watt. Multiplying
1.4 watt by 20, to get a 0.2 m^2 surface area, gives us 28 watts.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cells#Energy_conversion_e...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cells#Energy_conversion_efficiency)

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rndmcnlly0
For reference, a 2000 Calorie per day diet translates to about 100 Watts.

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jacquesm
2K Calories of energy per day translates in to 1163*2 = 2326 Watt-hours, which
you could interpret as an average consumption of 96.91 Watts over the course
of a day.

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davidw
"Half plant, half animal" seems incorrect: it's an animal that has borrowed
some DNA and cell parts from algae.

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eru
Or vice versa: It's plant DNA that has infected an animal and uses it for
reproduction. The algae's chloroplasts haven't figured out how to survive the
step into the next generation, yet, though.

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crayz
Right. If the genes were giving the snail sores, we'd call it a virus.
Perception is reality

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8ren
_Outcome_ is reality.

I recall a definition of mental illness that requires it to have a negative
impact on the person.

A mutation may be adaptive or maladaptive. It depends on the creature as a
whole - and also the current environment.

That environment is analogous to the _market_ part of "product+market" for a
startup: the identical technology/product can be a winner or a loser,
depending on extra-product factors.

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eru
Yes, outcome is reality. But the words we use, plant taking over snail or
snail stealing plant genes, are shaped by perception.

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8ren
I see that your reply to davidw was about actor/object; but I was replying to
crayz, who was talking about "borrowing some DNA"/"being infected" ie. whether
the effect was good or bad. hmmm... at least that's how I read him, anyway;
but maybe he was also focusing on actor/object... regardless, I still say I
have a valid point! :-) Good day, sir!

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rlpb
Mitochondria are hypothesised to have originated from separate organisms.
Could this be additional evidence of the same process half way complete?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory>

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flannell
Here's a clip of it moving.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQNIpW0LlsU>

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js2
Follow the blog spam.

So this article is a summary of, and links to
[http://www.livescience.com/animals/green-slug-animal-
plant-1...](http://www.livescience.com/animals/green-slug-animal-
plant-100112.html)

But that article only mentions its source "The finding was first reported by
Science News" w/o a link. Some googling turns up:

<http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/green-sea-slug/>

which appears to be the original reporting.

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absconditus
The article is actually from Science News. This is evident by the byline and
the Science News logo near the top of the article. I apologize for not doing
better checking.

[http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/53496/title/Sea_s...](http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/53496/title/Sea_slug_steals_genes_for_greens%2C_makes_chlorophyll_like_a_plant)

~~~
js2
Notice the publication date on that is Feb 13th though. Science News articles
sometimes appear first at wired.com for whatever reason.

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kentosi
I seem to remember a while back when scientists discovered a jellyfish with
similar attributes. Does anyone else recall?

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robryan
Good example for an argument with anyone who doesn't believe in evolution.

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loewenskind
What new capability now exists that didn't before? Not for the snail, but
_over all_.

