Deep Sea Cucumber: “jettisons internal organs from anus”
September 2, 2010
Unbelievable – nature’s defense strategies never cease to amaze…
Photo by INDEX-SATAL/NOAA
“A free-swimming sea cucumber moves through the freezing waters of a 10,515-foot (3,205-meter) abyss.
The 1,250 known species of sea cucumbers—named for their distinctive shapes—live on or near deep ocean floors or dwell in the shallows. (Watch a video of a “hairy” sea cucumber.)
When threatened, some sea cucumbers can mutilate their own bodies as a defense mechanism: The animals violently contract their muscles and jettison some of their internal organs out of their anuses.”
From National Geographic New Deep Sea picture gallery
Video: The Goblin Shark bite, its just plain strange…
August 19, 2008
The goblin shark is a deep-sea shark with a most unorthodox shaped head. It has a long, trowel-shaped, beak-like snout, much longer than other sharks. Some other distinguishing characteristics of the shark are the color of its body, which is mostly pink, and its long, protrusible jaws, which basically means it look like an Alien…
Goblin sharks are found in the deep ocean, far below where the sun’s light can reach at depths greater than 200 m. They can be found throughout the world, from Australia in the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico in the Atlantic Ocean.They are best known from the waters around Japan, where the species was first discovered.
Goblin sharks feed on a variety of organisms that live in deep waters. Among some of their known meals are deep-sea squid, crabs and deep-sea fishes and occassionally they’ll have a go at diver’s arm, mmmhh!
Cheers for the tip Limbic
Census of Marine Life & the Yeti Crab
July 2, 2008
This new species of crab was discovered off the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge in the South Pacific Ocean.
It was named Kiwa hirsuta kiwa, after the goddess of shellfish in Polynesian mythology, but has become known as the “yeti crab” because of its hairy appearance.
With 120,000 species now on-line, the Census of Marine Life considers itself half-way to its goal of checking and validating the 230,000 marine species currently known to science. Once completed, the World Register of Marine Species, called WoRMS, will be the first source for descriptions on all marine life.
The World Register of Marine Life finds itself in good company. In fact both the Register and the Census of Marine Life are working with similar projects like Species2000, The Encyclopedia of Life, and ZooBank to create places for researchers and educators to find authenticated and up-to-date information on the globe’s total species.
From Mongabay.com: Read more
See also:
www.marinespecies.org
www.coml.org
Marine bacteria dyes keep knickers free of E coli
June 5, 2008
A strain of marine bacteria produces large amounts of bright red pigments that can be used as a natural dye for wool, nylon, silk and other fabrics, scientists in California are reporting. The dyes from Mother Nature’s palate also have an anti-bacterial effect that could discourage harmful bacteria from growing on socks, undergarments, and other clothing, they report in a new study.
In the new research, graduate student Farzaneh Alihosseini, her adviser Gang Sun and colleagues point out that conventional dyes and pigments used in clothing have several drawbacks. Many are made from non-renewable resources such as petroleum, and are potentially harmful to the environment and human health. In addition, concerns exist about the potential toxicity of existing antibacterial-fabric coatings.
The researchers found that a certain strain of bacteria isolated from marine sediments produces large quantities of bright red pigments called prodiginines that can be used to dye clothing. In laboratory tests, the pigments worked on wool, silk, nylon, and acrylic fabrics as efficiently and effectively as some conventional dyes. The pigments showed strong antibacterial activity against harmful bacteria, including E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus, when applied to most of the fabrics tested.
From Science Daily: Read more
Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef
June 4, 2008
The Great Barrier Reef lovingly recreated in a giant piece of crochet? Science attempting to explain complex geometry – to a group of women wielding crochet hooks.
The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef came about by accident after its creator Margaret Wertheim read about a discovery by a mathematician called Daina Taimina: that you could model hyperbolic space using crochet, simply by increasing the number of stitches in each row until the fabric warps. Mathematicians had previously struggled to demonstrate hyperbolic surfaces, despite the fact that they appear throughout the natural world – in lettuce leaves, for example.
The reef has developed along evolutionary and art-historical lines. The sisters are now in their “postmodern phase”, working on a “toxic reef”, crocheted using plastic carrier bags sliced into ribbons and reels of videotape – a comment on the environmental damage being wreaked on the real Barrier Reef by pollution and waste. “People ask: is it art or science?” says Wertheim. “But I don’t believe in those classifications. This project is feminine handicrafts, it’s mathematics, it’s ecology – it crosses those boundaries.”
From the Guaradian.co.uk: Read more
