How Many Genes Does It Take to Learn? Lessons from Sea Slugs

Scientists analyzing the genomics of a marine snail have gotten an unprecedented look at brain mechanisms, discovering that the neural processes in even a simple sea// creature are far from sluggish. At any given time within just a single brain cell of sea slug known as Aplysia, more than 10,0...

Slugs a home run with NIH

...ysia ," said Capo. "A while back we even tried using romaine lettuce as a substitute for the red algae which is a regular part of their diet, and the slugs turned pale green, as opposed to the healthy purplish color they typically have." ...

slugs in Biological News

Scientists discover 5 new species of sea slugs from the Tropical Eastern Pacific

Cuthona behrensi, one of five new species of aeolid nudibranchs discovered in the Eastern Pacific. The Tropical Eastern Pacific, a discrete biogeographic region that has an extremely high rate of endemism among its marine organisms, continues to yield a wealth of never-before-described marine a...

National assessment done on potential invasive snail and slug pests in US

... South Carolina, and two U.S. Department of Agriculture invasive pest experts, David G. Robinson and James W. Smith. The evaluation of snails and slugs from around the world was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to UH Manoa and the American Malacological Society. The research ...

UH Manoa researchers release results of statewide survey of snail, slug invasions in Hawai'i

...mined that most of the unwanted species were probably first brought into Oahu, and then spread to the neighbor islands. "We found alien snails and slugs in all 40 nurseries in our survey," said Cowie, chair of the Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology graduate program at UHM. "In total, we found...

Solar-powered sea-slugs live like plants, prof says

...mount of plastids it can survive, like plants, for at least nine months by trapping solar energy and converting it into food." That means the "baby" slugs are born with genes that support photosynthesis, but they have to gather their own plastids. Manhart says that if the slug and the alga both brave the...

Snakes, salamanders and other creatures thrive in areas with higher deer populations

...d in random spots in each fenced and unfenced site. These boards are placed on top of the soil and act as rocks or other ground cover for salamanders, slugs and other animals to hide under for protection. The researchers then counted the number of invertebrates and vertebrates under each board every th...

U. of I. librarian launches comprehensive Web database of field guides

...gs in Australia are one thing obvious topics for field guides. So are stone walls in the Eastern United States, seashells of the Arabian Gulf and sea slugs in Hong Kong. And, farther afield, guides to the names of clouds and Galaxies and Other Deep Sky Objects make perfect sense. A field guide to the s...

Genetic differences in clover make one type toxic

...ison. Thats because some clovers have evolved genes that help the plant produce cyanide to protect itself against little herbivores, such as snails, slugs and voles, that eat clover. Other clover plants that do not make cyanide are found in climates with colder temperatures. So, in picking your poison, e...

Mutation improves memory, may lead to memory-enhancing pill

...erve connections, resulting in long-term memory, lasting days, weeks, or years. "Quite different molecular machineries, widely conserved from sea slugs to rodents, are thought to underlie these two components. While modifications of pre-existing proteins are sufficient for the transient changes, new g...

The secret lives of sea slugs

...to science, but also because they suggest that sea slugs don't just inch randomly around the sea. In fa...orrelated with earlier studies suggesting that sea slugs flatten out their bodies to reduce drag when they ...s. The goal of neuroethologists who study sea slugs in the laboratory is to link specific behaviors to...

When the going gets tough, slime molds start synthesizing

...olds starve, they collectively form a multicellular slug-like creature that locomotes en masse to a warm spot. There, in response to the DIF-1 signal, slugs literally stand up and their cells metamorphose into either a column of stalk cells or next-generation spore cells, which perch atop the column waitin...

slugs in Biological Definition

Herbivore

...) Deer Elephants Some rodents such as guinea pigs , porcupines , beavers , and capybaras Rabbits Grasshoppers Snails and slugs For a complete further list of herbivorous animals see list of herbivorous animals . ...

Osmosis

...ey are adapted to) will die quickly, and in the case of saltwater fish rather dramatically. In addition, the use of table salt to kill leeches and slugs depends on osmosis. Chemical potential When a solute is dissolved in a solvent, the random mixing of the two species results in an increase in...