June 19, 2016 at 04:13AM

Today I Learned: 1) The octopus genome is a somewhat unusual thing. Specifically, the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) has just over 33,000 protein coding genes, which is a good 50% more genes than in humans. It has a large number of rearrangements relative to other molluscs, possibly because of an abundance of transposons, which are (probably parasitic) DNA sequences that can splice themselves in and out of the genome. In particular, O. bimaculoides (and probably other cephalapods) has a large expanded set of cadherins and zinc-finger transcription factors. More details behind a paywall here: http://ift.tt/1ZZL2aO 2) A multi-level marketing (MLM) company is one that pays employees based on both the sales they are responsible for and for the sales of anyone they recruit. This is generally considered a pyramid scheme, and is illegal a lot of the time, based on the fact that virtually everyone involved ends up not coming out of them well, except for the few people who start the process. Nevertheless, MLMs persist in America. 3) A praying mantis will definitely eat a spider, if it's small enough. I think it will attack a ladybug, but I don't think it can eat it very well.