Discussion
Costasiella kuroshimae
stavros: Life is amazing.
squigz: Stuff like this really makes you wonder what life might look like out in the universe.
explodes: [delayed]
morphle: Isn't life on this planet also life out in the universe? It depends on your point of view.[1] Pale blue dot - Carl Sagan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
squigz: Do you consider things that are inside a house to also be outside a house?
morphle: All things are moving in space and time and in relation to other objects so inside or outside are relative points of view.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity[2] Point of view is worth 80 IQ points - Alan Kay. He didn't specify the sign....
squigz: I wonder if life elsewhere in the universe is pedantic too.
idiotsecant: Makes you imagine a world with high solar power density and maybe lower gravity or something where larger land animals might be realistically supplemented by solar energy as well.
tbrownaw: Closer to the sun (high solar power density) and smaller (lower gravity)... I think we actually have one of those nearby?
Ericson2314: I remember as a kid wondering if we could give humans chlorolaplasts.
tbrownaw: Things inside this house are indeed outside that house.
lukan: Some infinite water supply would be probably helpful there.
tbrownaw: Infinite indeed, need to keep it topped off as it all boils away.
rustyhancock: I believe that mitochondria and chloroplast both were originally independent single celled organisms.So kind of funny that, chloroplast is being "stolen" again by this sea slug.
lukan: Now I think of a scifi setting, where rich people use massive ressources to feed their artificial gardens on Merkur with water from comets, so the genetically engineered solar powered green butterflies in their garden can keep flying.(But there might be more expensive adjustments needed, like rotation speed)
iwd: I just got to see a different species of kleptoplastic sea slugs in the wild last month, on a kayak tour of the mangroves around Key West. Our guide scooped some lettuce sea slugs up in a plastic container (and then returned them safely). They were bigger, about 3 inches long, with a wavy/frilly green border. It made my biologist heart very happy!
throwup238: That was likely a sea slug from the Nudibranchia order (they resemble lettuce sea slugs sometimes) which are a bit different from Sacoglassa order slugs like the one in TFA in that they carry symbiotic algae colonies, rather than digesting them and keeping the chloroplasts like Sacoglassa.
