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Jellyfish Swimming Is Mixing the Oceans
eviltangerine writes "A new article from LiveScience suggests that marine creatures, such as the jellyfish, may contribute as much to ocean mixing as wind and tides. Wired is also covering the story and includes a video of the jellyfish in action. From the article, 'The mere act of swimming implies that some water travels with the swimmer,' said CalTech engineer Kakani Katija, co-author of the study in Nature Wednesday. 'Drift applies to all animals, to anything with a body.' No word yet on when the jellyfish blender is to debut."
I prefer camel toe.
Ban the doggy paddle! It is a super effective mixing motion!
"Drift applies to all animals, to anything with a body.' No word yet on when the jellyfish blender is to debut."
Having been stung by a jellyfish the image of one in a blender did bring a smile to my face. They might make a nice sushi smoothie.
"Caltech" or "CalTech": whatever you call it, it's not correct English and therefore cannot conform to English spelling.
Besides, this is slashdot, on the intertubes, where every possible mangle of the English language carries equal weight, so long as the meaning is clear.
<mutter>Stupid stupid junior grammar Nazis cannot get even the basics of the bitching right.</mutter>
" 'The mere act of swimming implies that some water travels with the swimmer," said CalTech engineer Kakani Katija"
Temporary vortices aside, I think that Sir Isaac Newton might take issue with this statement.
The topic of ocean mixing is a huge subject, and seems to implicate just about everything you can think of: the atmosphere, geologic activity, emergent effects from complex system dynamics, boundary layers, energy dissipation, fluid turbulence, climate change, dissolved minerals, the rotation of the earth, gravitational effects of the moon, etc., etc. It's not particularly surprising to me that the actions of marine life are a significant component as well, though it's interesting to see actual numbers claiming to demonstrate it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
6 percent of ocean mixing is caused by the thrashing of swimmers in the process of being devoured by great white sharks. 18 percent of these are being eaten by the same shark that killed their father.
The densities of sea life in the past is apparent in the history of its harvest. Were the oceans more prolific because of the amount of fish mixing? Mixing creates more interface, so wouldn't that affect tiny organisms because they get more exposure on the food chain?
I recently read history of herring runs spawning in the Salish Sea so abundantly that the water was white, and that eggs were laid on everything in the water, such that they could be collected simply by submerging cedar branches. Not to mention historical quantities of fish all over the world...
Just heard a flying astronaut again describing how thin a veil the atmosphere is and I realized that for how big a volume the earth is, its livable surface area(biosphere) isn't really that large at all. *duh* but I never connected spherical geometry (area vs volume) and the concept of how profoundly we could affect our environment when the earth is soo big.
The Institute's Media Relations Department specifically requests that all press organizations should use either use "Caltech" or "California Institute of Technology," and that "CalTech" or "Cal Tech" is nonstandard. It isn't about proper use of English, it's just that it makes sense to use a single standardized abbreviation.
Incidentally, as an alumnus, I've noticed that several street signs located in the Pasadena area that point to Caltech are similarly incorrect. Not that I really care. That place took four years of my life from me, the professors don't care about the undergraduates, and the living quarters were ridiculously filthy, so it's not like I really give a rat's ass.
maybe they will discover that moving boats do it too?! Or birds do the same with the air?!
Let's All Go Jellyfishing!!! (This is the Best Day Ever!!!)
I mean, I know headlines can't convey everything, but it seems a few leaps have been made...
"There are enough of these animals in the ocean," Dabiri said, "that, on the whole, the global power input from this process is as much as a trillion watts of energy â" comparable to that of wind forcing and tidal forcing."
Then... how these trillion of watts of energy (gosh, isn't energy measured in Joules anymore?) contributes to the global warming?
Exactly. I mean isn't that why ships and trucks travel in convoys?
A jellyfish in action?
Bow chicka wow-wow!
This would be an awesome band name.
Like Slashdot not SlashDot... now that wasn't hard was it?
Will it blend? The ocean, that is.
I'll have a Martini James.
Pulsated, not stirred!
which is definitely worth checking out. Really amazing stuff!
The BBC story also has some interesting points about why jellyfish in particular are being looked at.
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What would happen if you put the World's oceans in a Blendtec blender? Yeah, kinda blows your mind thinking about it, doesn't it.
I just wondered whether those formerly large populations were sustainable because of a factor like this, and once they were reduced beyond a point, the ocean became less "fertile", causing an additional downward pressure...
That's like saying the movement of animals affect the wind. Let me guess, birds were once so populous that the beating of their wings....what bullshit. Sounds kewl tho...you know, the kind of cool that's so stupid it's interesting?