Wonders of the Deep

13 responses to “Wonders of the Deep”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Mar 13, 2012 at 10:32 pm

   I’ve been begging for years, and TED brought back the aquarium party this year, with chill-out mattresses strewn about.

   In a relaxing setting, once can look at the large exhibits and see patterns of motion that play out over longer time scales, and across large schools of fish or rhythmic turtles.

   Here is Colleen Flanigan as Amphitrite, goddess of the sea:

   

   She grows coral reef gardens on designed underwater structures.

   And here’s a post-coital glance between some fine furry fellows
   
   pondering the wonders of the deep.

   Reply
2. 

   tifotter

   Mar 13, 2012 at 11:04 pm

   I love that cephalopod TED talk. Did you see the Orion article? http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6474/

   Reply
3. 

   solerena

   Mar 14, 2012 at 2:41 am

   Fascinating…

   Reply
4. 

   PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

   Mar 14, 2012 at 3:06 am

   Cool, do you think we got the same one ? =)
   This aquarium is really cool, spent few hours in it between meetings, talks and walks along the ocean =)

   

   Amazing TED ed. Merci for the discovery

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5. 

   seatonsnet

   Mar 14, 2012 at 6:33 am

   I remember a second grade teacher of mine that looked exactly like that…. Miss Gordon, I think her name was.

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6. 

   scleroplex

   Mar 14, 2012 at 12:27 pm

   nice! 🙂

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7. 

   Beach Lady

   Mar 14, 2012 at 10:25 pm

   What aquarium was this "party" at?

   Reply
8. 

   jurvetson

   Mar 15, 2012 at 4:50 pm

   Aquarium of the Pacific, the largest in Southern California.

   [http://www.flickr.com/photos/photonquantique] – mais oui. This was the part of the tank where it can rest on top of the observers head.

   Reply
9. 

   ablaze mist

   Mar 16, 2012 at 11:03 am

   I would like to be a skate and slink through the sea. At least for a little while. 🙂

   Reply
10. 

    jurvetson

    Mar 31, 2012 at 4:48 pm

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tifotter] – Fascinating creatures. Thanks for the pointer. Here are some excerpts from that love story with the octopus:

    “I have always loved octopuses. No sci-fi alien is so startlingly strange. Here is someone who, even if she grows to one hundred pounds and stretches more than eight feet long, could still squeeze her boneless body through an opening the size of an orange; an animal whose eight arms are covered with thousands of suckers that taste as well as feel; a mollusk with a beak like a parrot and venom like a snake and a tongue covered with teeth; a creature who can shape-shift, change color, and squirt ink.

    Athena’s suckers felt like an alien’s kiss—at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed.

    Three-fifths of an octopus’s neurons are not in the brain; they’re in its arms. It is as if each arm has a mind of its own… For example, researchers who cut off an octopus’s arm (which the octopus can regrow) discovered that not only does the arm crawl away on its own, but if the arm meets a food item, it seizes it—and tries to pass it to where the mouth would be if the arm were still connected to its body.

    For its color palette, the octopus uses three layers of three different types of cells near the skin’s surface. The deepest layer passively reflects background light. The topmost may contain the colors yellow, red, brown, and black. The middle layer shows an array of glittering blues, greens, and golds. But how does an octopus decide what animal to mimic, what colors to turn? Scientists have no idea, especially given that octopuses are likely colorblind.

    But new evidence suggests a breathtaking possibility. Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory and University of Washington researchers found that the skin of the cuttlefish Sepia officials, a color-changing cousin of octopuses, contains gene sequences usually expressed only in the light-sensing retina of the eye. In other words, cephalopods—octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid—may be able to see with their skin.”

    And if that was not strange enough, the detachable arms that think for themselves take on a whole new meaning for the males…

    Reply
11. 

    TomiTapio

    Apr 4, 2012 at 1:52 pm

    Very nice.

    Reply
12. 

    solerena

    Apr 4, 2012 at 3:01 pm

    Wow, to see with your skin!! And to think with all parts of ones body… Hm, about the last: Ouch! Poor male octopus… Any good news?

    Reply
13. 

    solerena

    Apr 4, 2012 at 3:08 pm

    A gift of deeper understanding what it means to think, to see and to know…different view on intelligence and consciousness…really fascinating…

    Reply