Valleys and Troughs

Bear Gryllls raw animal medley, including the infamous goat testicle.

One of our favorite aspects of Man vs. Wild, and the reason we'd pick Bear Grylls above Survivorman Les Stroud any day of the week has always been the stiff-upper-lip British pluck with which he will eat literally anything he finds, be it living, dead or of indeterminate status. Stroud's greatest claim to glory is that unlike Bear, he allegedly does all his own camerawork. Which does impress. But would he give himself a fetid-water enema if trapped on a raft in the ocean? We can't say for sure. But Bear Grylls would. The best part of the above video is the glimpse of the crew's perspective - "definitely needs... more garlic." If we ever find ourselves trapped in a remote wilderness, we will only momentarily hesitate before chomping down on some goat balls. Oh, and the fetid-water enema, just in case:

VALLEY?

Horrible things lurking at the bottom of the ocean filmed, for whatever reason.

That's an oarfish, and lucky for the clowns in the picture, it's a dead one. Up until now this is the only way these things have been seen, either washed up on shore or floating belly-up in the waves. But scientists working in the Gulf of Mexico have captured what is believed to be the first footage of the oarfish, which can reach lengths of 17 meters - that's 55 feet to us non-metric users; go ahead, do the math - alive and in its natural habitat. Namely, the bottom of the ocean. The footage was recorded by a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, under the direction of Mark Benfield of Louisiana State University working in conjunction with, of all people, a group of oil companies "such as BP, Shell, Chevron and Petrobras working in the Gulf of Mexico." Filming in the vicinity of an offshore oil platform, Benfield caught footage of the oarfish purely by chance:

"We saw this bright vertical shiny thing, I said 'are they lowering more riser?' as it looked like they were lowering a huge pipe."
"We zoomed in a little bit and we said 'that's not a riser that's a fish!'"
"As we approached it retreated downwards swimming tail first in a vertical orientation as the ROV followed," Professor Benfield explained.

The BBC has the story as well as the video, which might as well be the inside of somebody's fish tank, as clear as it is. Still, we can't help but be moved, and not in a pleasant way, by a development such as this. We've always been wary of what lies hidden in the murky depths of the ocean, and the knowledge that fifty-foot fish that "provided the basis for the sea serpent myths told by early ocean travellers" are swimming around down there doesn't exactly set our minds at ease. For more along these lines, see this chart, also by BBC, illustrating the various monstrosities populating the seafloor or "beyond the abyss," as they choose to call it. Yeah. Pretty much the stuff of nightmares. As always, we will think long and hard before we step foot into that ocean again.

very deep TROUGH

Dolphins second only to humans in intelligence, for all the good it does them.

One place we've never felt remotely comfortable is the ocean - we've spoken about this several times - but one thing that's always assuaged our fears of the deep blue sea is the implicit alliance that has always existed between man and dolphin. And according to new research, our faith in our hairless marine counterparts may be well-justified:

New MRI scans show that dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size when compared to another animal of similar size, according to Lori Marino, a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University, and one of the world's leading dolphin experts. Humans also possess an impressive brain-to-body ratio.

Marino admits that "size isn't everything," naturally, but points to the complexity of the dolphin neocortex and the exhibition of human-like ability to learn as indications of substantial brainpower. And just to ruin everyone's good times, she points out that "scientific evidence on dolphin sensitivities reveals that they are vulnerable to trauma and suffering when forced to live in the confined context of marine parks." So once again science has taken away something we love and replaced it with guilt and shame. And we wonder why people would rather watch Jersey Shore than read Science Magazine. They both make us feel bad about ourselves, but at least one of them is entertaining.

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via Discovery News

World needs to start worrying about Octopuses now, too.

We always keep a wary eye on the animal kingdom, especially that enormous portion of it that dwells in the murky depths of the sea. If there is a place on earth from which our doom will come, we feel pretty confident that it'll be the bottom of the ocean. Especially when Octopuses begin to use tools:

Humans living on the Indonesian coast frequently discard halved coconut shells in the ocean, and it turns out that their eight-legged neighbors have been making use of them. Researchers have filmed veined octopi, Amphioctopus marginatus, moving the shell halves by placing their bodies inside the hollowed-out portion, draping their legs over the edges, and bringing the shells along for the ride. When the coconut-carrying octopus feels threatened, it will pull the half shell over its body (or sometimes pulls two halves of a whole coconut over itself), and wait inside their armored home until the threat passes.

This is the first time that researchers have observed tool-use in an invertebrate species, or so the internets tell us, and we're inclined to believe them. This may seem like a trivial development, but bear in mind that it wasn't so long ago on the evolutionary timeline that we ourselves were hitting each other over the heads with rocks and probably using coconut-halves for body armor. Coupled with dolphins evolving opposable thumbs, we feel safe in saying that it is never too early to panic.

TROUGH

via io9

Weekend Valley: National Geographic's infinte photo.

If nothing else, we consider ourselves fans of the planet. It has always done pretty well by us, and we like to think that we try to return the favor more or less. But the fine people at National Geographic (of whom we are clearly enormous fans) have done us one better. You would do well to spend a few minutes checking out their Infinite Photograph - As Seen On Earth, which is essentially a never-ending digital photomosaic that will literally blow one's mind. Double-click on the individual photos if you want to find out more about them, otherwise just click away. Pretty amazing stuff.

VALLEY, for the earth.

National Geographic gives us 10 reasons to step back from the ledge.

Continuing with the theme of wrapping up the past year, we direct your attention to National Geographic's Ten Environmental Wins of 2009, which should be pretty self-explanatory. Polar bears in our mind stand as sort of the quintessential environmental issue of our time. Their very existence is bound up entirely with habitat which is disappearing due to human encroachment (we all likely know something of the ANWR debate) and of course global warming. Yet there is some slightly encouraging news on the horizon:

In October the U.S. government proposed designating more than 200,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) of land, sea, and ice along Alaska's north coast as critical habitat for the polar bear, which is listed as threatened with extinction under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

"That is a huge, positive affirmation that losing the polar bear is unacceptable," said the Center for Biological Diversity's Cummings. "If we are truly going to protect this habitat, we are going to have to deal with the climate crisis."

All well and good, until Sarah Palin decides she wants to start shooting Polar Bears from helicopters and writes a book about how awesome it is. There are other notable stories, including a decrease in the rate of deforestation in Brazil, which is pretty encouraging. Any list of this nature is sure to conjure conflicting emotions. On the one hand it's great to see that we as a global people are making progress toward not wantonly destroying the earth, yet it also points out how much damage we've done and how tenuous our progress really is. Still, good news is good news, we feel. Let's hope it's a sign of things to come.

VALLEY.

Glowing prairie voles will save marriage, finally.

It's no secret that the institution of marriage is under threat in America, of all places, beset on all sides by the evils of boredom and irrelevancy and idiocy and you get the idea. And let's not forget the gays, right? Right? Just ask Hi Caliber. Anyhow, researchers at Emory University have taken some pretty bold steps toward understanding the secrets of monogamy, and it involves infusing the DNA of prairie voles with the gene that allows jellyfish to glow. Naturally. The voles were chosen because behavior-wise, they are not so dissimilar to us. They mate for life, share child-rearing duties, and even "cuddle," which is fantastic. And so:

The scientists are studying the genetic of monogamy, and voles serve as a model of human behaviors like cheating or mate competition. In this experiment, they've linked the glowing gene to a gene suspected to control their impulse to cheat on their mate. If you glow, you're not going to stray. But if you can't be seen in the dark, then the Ms. Vole might have reason to worry.

Well the possibilities here seem pretty encouraging. We've long awaited the arrival of elective genetic modification (we have yet to be presented with a compelling argument as to why this would not be the greatest thing ever. Ever wanted to dunk? Exactly). So despite the fact that scientists are hesitant to fully embrace all the implications of this research - they always are, aren't they - we feel confident that this is at least a step in the right direction, a direction in which we will all look like weird blue Avatar mutants but not cheat on each other ever again. Sounds good to us.

VALLEY

[via popsci]

UPDATE: killer seals real, more or less.

Last week we brought to your attention a story from Russia involving that nation's attempt to catch up with the U.S. in the pivotally important marine-mammal arms race. Really. Gennady Matishov, director of the Murmansk Marine Biology Institute in northern Russia, explained his country's desire to match America's prowess in the intricate dance that is dropping seals out of helicopters. This story was certain to raise a lot of eyebrows, ours especially, and thanks to some good old-fashioned investigative reporting by the folks at NPR, we have some answers:

"It is true that the U.S. military does employ teams of dolphins and sea lions," Noah Shachtman says. He's an editor for Wired Magazine and runs its military technology blog, "Danger Room."

They take on two roles, Shachtman says. "One is to look for underwater mines, and the other is that marine mammals are used to patrol certain U.S. bases to watch out for the very unlikely event of a terrorist swimmer attack."

Looking for underwater mines? The very unlikely event of a terrorist swimmer attack? Something's not adding up here. The Russians claim they have a seal that can incapacitate or even kill an enemy diver, and we're owning up to having dolphins with cameras strapped to their fins?

Impressive, to be sure. but we're not willing to be duped here. This thing has its roots in the Cold War, and those roots stretch deep into the danger and mystique lurking among the alien depths of the ocean floor. Something tells us it will be a long time before we have any real answers, but that doesn't mean we'll stop searching. Somewhere out there, somebody knows the truth.

And lest you think the convergence of sea animals and helicopters a trifling matter, we present you with maybe the least-thrilling action sequence ever filmed. At least it has inspired us to always be carrying shark-repellant Batspray:

VALLEY

China wants its pandas back, whenever we get a chance.

China is America's biggest creditor (TROUGH) and they've begun calling in their debts - beginning with Tai Shan, the only panda cub born at the Smithsonian National Zoo to survive to adulthood.

Under the Smithsonian's panda loan agreement, any cub born at the zoo must be returned to China for breeding. Tai Shan was born in 2005 and was supposed to be sent back to China in 2007, but the zoo was granted an extension to keep the panda for two more years.

Of all the indignities. Pandas are an astoundingly rare commodity, and are notoriously difficult to breed - some naturalists even argue we should give up on trying to save them altogether (which sentiment we find absurd, and so do most people who have, you know, a heart), and we are left to wonder if we shouldn't try to hang onto as many as we can. God knows we've taken firmer stands on issues of less significance than the propagation of the one species that is literally the symbol of wildlife conservation. We suppose there's something to be said for international cooperation with this sort of thing, though. Sadly it's an issue that may not trouble us for too much longer.

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via Discovery

Abysmal bone-worms feed only on whalebone, forever.

The possibilities of what lies in the seemingly infinite blackness of the bottom of the ocean mystifies - and even terrifies - many of us (more than you might think). The above image is of the recently-discovered yellow-collared worm, which feeds solely on the decaying skeletons of dead whales. This may seem pretty trivial, but it turns out that whale carcasses support an entire ecosystem - and can do so for twenty years:

Once flesh-eaters like hagfish and sharks have picked clean a whale's skeleton, the 0.8-inch-long (2-centimeter-long) worms go to work, said zoologist Helena Wiklund, a member of the University of Gothenburg team behind the study.

Generations of worms "could be there for maybe 20 years depending on how big the whale was," Wiklund added. "Bones from a big whale last really long on the seafloor."

Pretty fascinating stuff. The deepest part of the ocean is 35,850 ft. That's a mile more than the height of Everest, which just really boggles the mind. So far researchers have found these worms at depths up to 9,842 ft., which is still pretty staggering, and one can imagine that there's all sorts of other stuff happening down there that we can't even begin to wrap our heads around. Still, there's something sort of peaceful, poetic really we find, about imagining an entire circle of life that revolves around the slow detrital disintegration by miniscule creatures of the largest animals on earth, all on the ghostly stretches of the ocean floor. The wheel truly comes full circle.

VALLEY

via National Geographic here and here.