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Oil Exploration Leads To Video of a Mysterious Elbowed Squid
eldavojohn writes "A rare glimpse from Shell Oil of a giant squid brings to light the strange relationships some deep sea marine biologists have with drilling companies. The video of the squid (Magnapinna) is very rare as this creature remains largely a mystery to science. While some are concerned of a conflict of interest, biologists and big oil sure make for strange bedfellows. The video is from 200 miles off the coast of Houston, TX and about 4,000 feet down." Looking at this creature gives me the willies, frankly.
Damn, mother nature is really infinitely more inventive than every sci-fi movie director or write in the world. I mean, this is something I would expect to find on some alien planet or something.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
biologists and big oil sure make for strange bedfellows
Really? I would think that they (deep sea drillers and deep sea biologists) have learned quite a bit from each other over the years.
--
IP address Finding
Research is research. The data doesn't 'care' who paid for the camera. Besides it is in Shell (or whomever's) interest to understand as much as possible about the location they plan on dumping large amounts of money on.
What happens if there is an alien colony down there? Wouldn't you like to know? Don't go expecting Shell to fund a study of these things, but why wouldn't they show it to people. Looks pretty cool actually.
And didn't the camera say about 7500 feet (not 4000 as in TFS)?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This is why I don't eat creatures from the ocean.
Hopefully they'll return the courtesy.
using nothing but my keyboard and mouse!
Not Cthulhu, but possibly a distant cousin of something else:
He speculates that Magnapinna passively waits for prey to bump into the sticky appendages
Could these sticky appendages also be... noodly?
Looks like a giant virus:
http://50milesmore.blogspot.com/2008/03/prepare-to-be-assimalated.html
Squiddy will give you a flu like no other.
Table-ized A.I.
Based on analysis of videos not unlike the one captured at the Perdido site, scientists know that the adult Magnapinna observed to date range from 5 to 23 feet (1.5 to 7 meters) long
From the second page of the article.
This is clearly a new branch of Homeland Security for Cthulhu. Tired of people carrying around copies of the Necronomicon to dispell him, he has invested in an army of multi-jointed drifters to act as a lynch mob should any deep sea fish try to exchange knowledge of his whereabouts for a reduction in EU tuna quota.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Oil Shmoil, I smell a new revenue stream for porn.
Table-ized A.I.
Someone tell Zack Snyder, maybe he can get some budget footage for the Watchmen movie, give it a proper ending.
Really? You thought of squids getting hit by the drill bit as the disturbance to their ecosystem? Of course, you were joking.
Real men read Slashdot articles at -1, bottom up.
You never hear the full quote, but it is so much better then the shortened version:
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
Damn nature, you scary!
Still not as scary as Dolphins with Opposable Thumbs
It actually made me want to fire up XCom 2 and go destroy some underwater aliens! FWOOSH-BLEAH!
A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater, a remote control submersible's camera has captured an eerie surprise
Anyhow, very creepy.
Actually, is it me or does it kind of look like the queen mother from the Aliens movie? Argh.
Damn, a giant squid, a robot submarine AND big oil!
Now if only;
* The robot ran BSD, but formerly ran Vista
* The MAFIAA was claiming copyright on the film
* On close inspection, the squid had a google logo but was in fact an alien species
* Some jerk had just been granted a lame patent for 'swimming at great depths with tentacles'
We'd never need another!
Someone please shoot the asshole controlling the camera
Chill out - the camera's servo only has one speed as should be obvious from the panning when the view zooms out versus when it zooms in. You would not have done any better.
But how would the giant squid be able to pay?
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
I've seen at least three different shows on Discovery Channel about these squid that until a few years ago were considered by most biologists to be nothing by a myth.
One was about the first ever captured specimen of a Giant Squid -- it was almost microscopic and they couldn't keep any alive.
Later, one was about actually getting fleeting video of one in the wild.
Most recent was one about another kind of giant squid that's even bigger and was caught in a net accidentally. The fishing trawler was smart enough to quickly freeze it. In the show, they were able to thaw it carefully and do a dissection. Apparently one of the problems with scientists working with these is that thy decompose extremely rapidly.
Oil exploration is pushing serious camera time deeper than ever. At the same time, an awareness of the value to science of creatures that we don't know about is making inroads into fishing crews in even the most remote places where in the past such a find might simply have been discarded as waste.
There is a LOT of volume in the oceans, and we're far from understanding it in the kind of depth we one day will.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Great, now we have Pastafarianism: Terror From The Deep, the same as regular Pastafarianism but underwater and with a lot of bugs.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
In other news, Cthulhu ask us if we could go drilling for Oil at another place rather than at Rlyeh, because He would rather like to be left alone slumbering in peace, thank you very much.
All this noise gives Him maddening head aches....
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
to me it looks like a squid which just ate a rather large king crab. either that or it really is an alien searching for oil. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.
If it were anything else...
I was thinking about frying it in oil to make a new type of Calamari.
Truly awesome video and a truly awesome creature visible for the first time. Awesome might even be a bit understated.
But, the manner in which it was discovered? As ordinary as dirt. Face it ... imperial expansion, military exercises and exploration of the furthest corners of the earth, and beyond, and below, are all pretty much the province of the miner, the soldier, the geologist, the imperialist paying those salaries. There is nothing new about how this was found ... it's how EVERYTHING is found. The hunter finds the range and extent of the animals in the local area. The mapping of America was done by fur traders and those seeking treasure. You could go on and on.
There are those who oppose commercial enterprise, who oppose war and the exercises that preparation for war entail, who find man is essentially unkind to both man and the world he lives in. But, they learn from the adventures and the wallets of the "Bad Man".
That Shell released this video is hardly a surprise. Our entire knowledge of the world around us is essentially paid for by those like Shell Oil and those who came before them. Shell Oil is as interested in advancing our knowledge as anyone; perhaps more so because they intend to live in this world where this particular creature was found.
To imply evil intent is really off base ... they have plenty of opportunity to be evil the markets, on Capital Hill, at the UN, or the WTO. Note that few endangered species are likely to be found in those places, that is the environment of man, and is also the place where you are most likely to encounter the environmentalist, PETA, and the like.
They don't go a mile or more under the ocean's surface ... Shell Oil does, though.
I have never met anyone who works in the field for companies like Shell who is not far more aware of the world around them than those who occupy the cities and rail against the destruction of our environment. They have tremendous respect for the environment and the absolute wonder of the world we live in. Those who sit at their computers or write letters about banning plastic bags have no concept of the outdoors, usually. In fact, they rarely go about exploring the very city they live in.
Houston isn't on the coast. It's 50 miles from the coast at Galveston, which leaves two questions:
1) Was the squid found 150 miles off the coast at Galveston, or 200 miles?
2) Are there no longer any geographers working at National Geographic?
Score: 1 (pedantic+)
is that the same anatomies keep getting reinvented for various reasons: environment, food source, etc.
so you have dolphins mimicking the body plans of fish
you have bats mimicking the body plans of birds
you have the herds of grazers during the dinosaur age and the predators who track them, and you have the herds of grazers in our age and the predators who track them
the same bodyplans and anatomical features and feeding strategies keep getting reinvented
and here, you have a squid, who has evolved to live like a jellyfish
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
actually, Bigfin squids were first discovered in 1907, and the species in this particular video isn't new either. if you're talking about this particular specimen that's captured the video, then you may be right. but otherwise, deep sea drilling hasn't contributed much to our scientific understanding of this species.
I thought the camera's movement spoke volumes.
To me it said "Whoa WTF was that (doubletake)"
Yes, because I'm sure that the oil companies are only using barely trained idiots to operate their multi million dollar ROVs for their exploration of oil worth billions.
Seriously, WTF? Do you think they spend all that money on oil exploration only to have some tool operating the ROV who doesn't know how it works?
If you knew the squid was going to be there and rehearsed it, you might have gotten a better shot. If you were operating the ROV in real time and saw this thing, your odds of doing better are pretty slim.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Thank god it was taped by a robot. Nobody got insane this time.
-- dnl
Did anybody else notice that the video is from November 2007?
No, you would not. This is a Remotely Operated Vehicle. The endpoint of the control is not less than 4000 feet away -- straight down. The camera is not anything like a camera you hold in your hand. The camera is specifically designed for deep water use; and not for taking live action sweeps. The water at that depth is close to freezing, there are currents, and there is immense pressure.
Videography is not limited to just the narrow uses to which you are acquainted.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.