Octopuses torture and eat themselves after mating and science finally knows why:
She even eats pieces of her own arms.
Many animal species die after they reproduce. But in octopus mothers, this decline is particularly alarming: In most species, as an octopus mother's eggs get close to hatching, she stops eating. She then leaves her protective huddle over her brood and becomes bent on self-destruction. She might beat herself against a rock, tear at her own skin, even eat pieces of her own arms.
Now, researchers have discovered the chemicals that seem to control this fatal frenzy. [....]
[....] No one knows the purpose of the behavior. Theories include the idea that the dramatic death displays draw predators away from eggs, or that the mother's body releases nutrients into the water that nurture the eggs. Most likely, Wang said, the die-off protects the babies from the older generation. Octopuses are cannibals, she said, and if older octopuses stuck around, they might end up eating all of each other's young.
[....] If the nerves to the optic gland were cut, Wodinsky found, the mother octopus would abandon her eggs, start eating again and live for another four to six months. That's an impressive life extension for creatures that live only about a year.
But no one knew what the optic gland was doing to control this cascade of self-injury.
Wouldn't it be more efficient if the parent octopuses could become nourishment for the young hatchlings?
See Also:
Scientists discover why female octopuses self-mutilate to death after laying eggs
Journal Reference:
Z. Yan Wang et al., Steroid hormones of the octopus self-destruct system, Curr Biol, 2022.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.04.043
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @10:15PM
Kids are hard.
(Score: 5, Funny) by martyb on Wednesday May 25 2022, @10:51PM (11 children)
A high school classmate came up with this (Hi Chris!)
If octopus is octopi,
and radius is radii,
then pus is Pi
and us is I,
but that would be ridiculi!
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @11:42PM (9 children)
Now wouldn't that be ridiculoi?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday May 26 2022, @10:29AM (8 children)
Unless I'm missing something, not in 2nd declination Latin nouns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#Second_declension_(o_stems) [wikipedia.org]
Btw, octopus's plural is either octopuses (English), octopi (2nd declination Latin) or octopodes (from ὀκτώπους to ὀκτώπους in 3rd declination Greek). This is, btw, is a good analogy for what's wrong with C++.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @03:03PM (7 children)
Ignoring the fact that the actual stem of “ridiculous” is actually “redi-“ with two suffixes that follow different plural rules, the AC is implying that the stem of “ridiculous” is “ridiculo-“ and the ending of “-us” to denote its declension. Therefore, the correct nominative plural would be “ridiculous” should be “ridiculoi.” You are clipping off extra vowels that form a part of the stem, which is a common mistake.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday May 26 2022, @03:27PM (6 children)
My Latin is non-existent (I only took slightly over a year in uni and about another year of Greek) but following your explanation, the plural for dominus shouldn't be dominī, but dominoī. And that much I know is wrong.
Is it possible you're being thrown off by the Greek -οι second-declension masculine nominative plural suffix?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @04:16PM (5 children)
The stem of “dominus” is “domin-“ and “-us” is the ending. There is no extra “o” because there isn’t one in the stem, unlike “ridiculous .” Following the second declension and the result is:
Singular Plural
Nominative Dominus Domini
Genitive Domini Dominorum
Dative Domino Dominis
Accusative Dominum Dominos
Ablative Domino Dominis
Vocative Domine Domini
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday May 26 2022, @05:09PM (4 children)
Oh now I see where you got confused! Here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ridiculus [wiktionary.org]
This should clear things up.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @07:02PM (3 children)
Except that rhyme doesn’t use the Latin words, otherwise it wouldn’t rhyme because the plurals would be all over the place. It requires over-generalization of the English words to use the second declension. And in English, there is an “o” in “ridiculous.”
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday May 26 2022, @08:24PM (2 children)
The whole premise of the rhyme is to ridicule the over-generalized prescriptive grammatical rule that dictates any English word suffixing with -us can be pluralized with -i following Latin grammar.
Besides, the introduction of Latin words into the English language came about by Roman Catholic play-writes like Shakespeare whom weren't regularly declining unless it made the meter and rhyme. So, dropping the o from ridiculous is well within the same established practice that supposedly legitimizes the declination of borrowed Latin words in spoken and written English.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27 2022, @08:05PM (1 child)
Since you care about language: playwright. Shakespeare was a wright of words, not a write of words.
(I'm not the AC who knows Latin.)
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday May 28 2022, @04:15AM
Thanks I get that wrong all the time. But the thing is, I don't care about the spelling. I care about the message transfer. It's actually why I make fun of attempts at applying Latin grammar into English: They're the classic example of trying to enforce grammatical rules even when it reduces the understand-ability of the message. Well, along with the ending a sentence with a preposition thing... Essentially, I'm making fun of prescriptive linguistics.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 26 2022, @05:16PM
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2022, @11:44PM (2 children)
Get married and you will do the same.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 26 2022, @01:51PM (1 child)
Sex is reserved only for people in the bondage of marriage.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2022, @04:53PM
Baby making is only for those in a headlock. I mean wedlock.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Thursday May 26 2022, @12:07AM (2 children)
Awesome movie [imdb.com].
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 4, Informative) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 26 2022, @03:05AM
Not even going to bother giving us any information about it, just a cryptic URL, huh? Thanks.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 26 2022, @01:53PM
An Octopus Teacher may not give lessons suited to every porpoise.
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