Octopuses bypass slow evolutionary constraints by aggressively editing their messenger RNA on the fly, allowing them to rapidly alter their neural proteins to survive freezing…

A closer look

Most animals adapt to changing environments over millions of years by slowly mutating their DNA. Octopuses, however, lack that kind of patience. When the ocean temperature drops rapidly, a normal creature’s nervous system would sluggishly fail. To prevent this, cephalopods actively intercept their own messenger RNA—the blueprint copied from DNA that tells the cell how to build proteins—and manually swap out the adenosine molecules for inosine. This on-the-fly biological hacking alters the structure of their potassium channels, keeping their neurons firing perfectly in the freezing dark. They rewrite their own software without ever touching the actual hardware.