How would a starfish wear trousers? Science has an answer

Starfishes are weirdly shaped animals. Scientists have long puzzled over how a starfish body equates to the more typical animal arrangement of a head on one end and trunk or tail on the other. Humans wear trousers on the bottom of their trunks, so you could extrapolate out from that to suggest solutions to the ’trouser question’ for dogs, horses, spiders and even slugs. But what about a starfish? Now there’s a new possible answer based on the expression of their genes... Read the research paper here: For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: