Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from

Curiosity.com. I'm Cody Goff. And I'm Ashley Hamer.

Today you learn about what researchers found when they sequenced the duck-built

platypus genome, a trick for unlocking your creativity, and the strange

reasons for job-specific voices like those of pilots, newscasters, and poets.

Let's notify some curiosity.

The platypus is one of the coolest creatures on Earth.

That's just not up for debate.

And now researchers have a better idea why. According to the first complete map of the platypus genome, platypus genes are a mix of mammal, bird, and reptile.

But a platypus is officially a mammal, just one that looks like an otter with the bill and feet of a duck and the tail of a beaver.

The males have venomous spurs and lactating females ooze milk from their skin, sort of like sweat.

Because they don't have nipples.

They also have 10 sex chromosomes, plus biofluorescent fur.

So, is it a surprise that their genome is out of the ordinary?

Hmm, not really.

Platypuses belong to a tiny group of mammals called monotremes. It's a group with only one other member, the spiny ant eater. Monotremes are the only mammals that lay eggs.

Researchers still aren't totally sure how exactly the monotremes are related to their sister groups, the marsupials, and the placentals.

But this new genetic analysis makes it look like the egg-laying mammals set off on their own evolutionary journey about 187 million years ago in the

Jurassic period.

Jurassic Park definitely missed an opportunity there. Planipuses are distinctive because they lay eggs, but this

analysis tells us that those eggs are pretty different from the ones you'll find in a

bird's nest. Birds and reptiles have three different genes that tell their bodies how to make the proteins in their eggs

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