ARE OCTOPUSES MORE HUMAN THAN WE ARE?

We’ve all heard stories of scientists turning up amazing discoveries in the most unexpected places. In fact, sometimes it seems like most of the greatest scientific discoveries happened completely by accident. This is largely because not knowing the answer makes it hard for scientists to ask the right questions. This story is no exception, because when a group of scientists (including former Stanford Ph.D. student Judit Pungor) decided to take on the mighty task of sequencing the entire genome of the California two-spot octopus, they did it hoping to learn more about these strange animals and maybe figure out which genes make them so different from other mollusks. They certainly didn’t expect to learn that octopus and humans have something very important in common.