How To Travel With an Octopus

Abstract

In this article, I promote science, art, and octopuses. Its purpose is to entertain, advertise, and tell (and also show) a story that one might find amusing or boring, thoughtful or light-minded, educational or utterly silly. See and decide for yourself.

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A bit bitter, a tad sour, and slightly spicy. That's how a wasp I nearly swallowed a while ago tasted. The incident happened during lunchtime, in mid-August, I think. It buzzed into my mouth the moment I opened it—planning to say something unimportant to my colleagues—touched the tip of my tongue and flew away. One of the most random things that happened to me in my life. It proves that we cannot always control our environment, not really. Sometimes, things happen, and we can only react and reap the consequences.

But overall, I think I'm lucky enough. I usually get what I want, and wasps don't bite me. Although, I never really know what exactly that is I want. One thing always holds true: everybody wishes to be happy. The ultimate happiness, how does it look like? I can tell you: don't ask me. Well, if you insist, then read on. Happiness is a crafty shapeshifter. It may come in many forms. The good thing is that usually one doesn't have to go through any special training to recognize it. The happiness indicator is engraved into our flesh and bones. Speaking more technically and less allegorically, it's encoded in our DNA. Genetic circuits are terrifyingly complex, and when I'm in the mood for thinking about stuff and admiring Mother Nature, I can't help but wonder: how? Sure, evolution had millions of years to do its thing, but good lord, this giant leap from an amoeba to a human being is incredible; one almost starts to believe that the first man was made of the dust of the ground, and then God breathed life into it. Even the complexity and coordinated interconnections and interactions of the molecular machinery that makes up amoebas are more than stunning.

I remember how shocked I was when one sunny day I suddenly realized that all the various types of tissues and cells a living being consists of have identical genome. That is, in any taken creature/person (be it a kangaroo or me), blood cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, etc., etc. that comprise this organism—having their unique shapes, functions, and biochemical environments—all they are governed and controlled by the same DNA sequence. This is where a major, insurmountable distinction between the genetic and machine code lies. You can't write a computer program that would behave differently and change its structure in response to different external stimuli that from the very start had been encoded into this program. To add this flexibility, one has to write additional lines and lines of code. Zeroes and ones are just zeroes and ones, while DNA has more levels of complexity to its four-letter alphabet. It is subject to certain chemical modifications and is packed in space (in the cell nucleus) in such a way that it forms a condensed structure of variable density, which makes some of its regions easier/more difficult to access than others. These levels of regulation provide our genome with the needed flexibility and ability to differentiate cells into different types, arrange them into tissues, and tissues into organs... The complex superstructure of our genome is built and regulated by cellular machinery—most importantly, certain specialized proteins, which are encoded in our DNA. Do you see an apparent paradox here? It's like the effect goes before the cause; the past and present are dictated by the future. Why did I start talking about it? Well, long story short, living organisms—and us included—are fascinating! I don't know you, but you're amazing! At least from a scientific standpoint.

I hear you asking: "So what about octopi?" Do they occupy your mind that badly? They've been octopying mine for quite a while. I literally got obsessed with them in a way. With them in a way, got obsessed for real. I would like to start from afar if nobody minds.

Having blue blood, three hearts, and eight appendages that, technically speaking, are called arms, not tentacles, and that can be regenerated if they were shed or severed, being highly intelligent and also quite delicious, octopuses are amazing creatures. Being colorblind, they can discern polarized light. They can also regenerate their central nervous system. Oh, if only we could borrow a few neural stem cells from them once in a while, the problem of adult mammals would have been solved: we would be able to stress out as much as we want without worrying about killing our brain cells. Wishful thinking, eh?

My obsession sprouted like this. Our laboratory PI (Principal Investigator) mentioned in one of our meetings that it would be great to make a fancy sciency illustrative image of our project. Thus I was introduced to Blender, a 3D computer graphics program with free & open-source software. Now, my skills in 3D modeling as well as drawing were (and honestly still are) several miles below sea level. But I got enthusiastic. That's what I like about life in academia. It promotes your creativity, encourages curiosity, and does not let you stagnate. Also, you have access to free liquid nitrogen and can use it to make ice cream. There are downsides too, of course. But name me at least one place on Earth where there's none.

Eventually, a few weeks later, our PI made the fancy image himself. You can see it below. Also, you can read there about microtubules, tubulin posttranslational modifications, and stuff. A short molecular biology lesson for the record: microtubules are biopolymers comprised of tubulin protein molecules that make up the cytoskeleton, provide structure and shape to cells, and facilitate cell division and intracellular transport.

In the meantime, I made my first 3D model in Blender. A Minecraftish mushroom!

Still far from microtubules, right? So I kept working on my Blender skills. The next mini-project I came up with was to make an illustration of a DNA double helix. A YouTube tutorial came to my help. And here is the result:

Scientifically speaking, this is already much closer to microtubules. We can presume that these pieces of DNA encode tubulin. Nobody can disprove it.

And then I was struck by an idea: An Octopus With Microtubule Arms! My friends asked me what I smoked. But I don't need to smoke nothing to have my ideas brooded. With the concept at hand (in my head), 'twas time to get started with its realization. I'll spare you the details. One of the most challenging parts was not to overheat my computer and wisely reduce the number of faces and vertices in my starting material—tubulin molecules—without severely affecting the quality and handsomeness of my creation. At some point, my .blend file containing a still unfinished octopus (he was missing a few arms) grew to occupy 5 GB. Fat ass! My laptop could not endure this data usage abuse and crashed the program down. Not Responding. That's too bad. More tinkering, decimating, and smoothing, and eventually I got it! About 1.5 months ago, I finished my Microtubulous Octopus. You can see the result in this article's cover image. Plushie, a bit stoned, and having his om moment. Here is another picture of him taken from a different perspective:

People kept asking me what was his name. Therefore, I had to give him one. Meet Bob. Though it's not a real name but rather a code name, an abbreviation standing for Brother Octopus Bob. And again, Bob is not a name but an abbreviation. Thus Bob is a fractal. But first of all, he's an octopus and nanobiorobot. I still wasn't happy enough with how he turned out to be: too plushie, too stoned, and too symmetrical. So, this week I started creating him anew. A few days, one sleepless night, and I finally could reap what my brain sowed. I'm still not 100% contented with his looks, but well, nobody's perfect. Below I'm presenting a collection of pictures depicting Bob in his natural habitat. All rights reserved. 🐙

What about happiness? Ah, don't ask me. I can tell you more about microtubules, octopuses, and how to make ice cream using liquid nitrogen, but when it comes to happiness, seek answers to your questions (if you have any) on your own.

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