Apparently scientists are starting to wonder whether our "plants and animals" system really works.
They've recently run into a...planimal that simply doesn't seem to fit either group...and actually seems to be both. It's a tiny one-celled organism that lives by eating plants, like an animal, and then absorbs the photosynthesizing elements, using them to generate energy, like a plant. It will generate energy like this for a while, and then go find another plant to eat...like an animal.
It's a strange world out there...Scientists say that studying such animals can give insight into how cells live and divide, possibly helping explain out-of-control cancer cells. But the next plan is to "grow" the thing in a lab to document how much time it spends as a plant, and how much as an animal...either way, it's pretty darn weird.
http://sciencenordic.com/weird-plant-animal-baffles-scientists
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