The Immortal Jellyfish (good friends I'm guessing with the Gregarious jellyfish)

This New York Times Magazine Article may have just made my work relevant (for a day or two at least)!

The immortal jellyfish can shift between the mature form to polyp form and skip the sexual reproduction of a regular jellyfish lifecycle.  There are some awesome things about this; read the article.  What is awesome to me is that the major issue with studying this organism is that it is very difficult to keep in captivity.  They require careful attention to detail, especially detail to their eating habits. 

"For the last 15 years, Kubota has spent at least three hours a day caring for his brood. Having observed him over the course of a week, I can confirm that it is grueling, tedious work. When he arrives at his office, he removes each petri dish from the refrigerator, one at a time, and changes the water. Then he examines his specimens under a microscope. He wants to make sure that the medusas look healthy: that they are swimming gracefully; that their bells are unclouded; and that they are digesting their food. He feeds them artemia cysts — dried brine shrimp eggs harvested from the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Though the cysts are tiny, barely visible to the naked eye, they are often too large for a medusa to digest. In these cases Kubota, squinting through the microscope, must slice the egg into pieces with two fine-point needles, the way a father might slice his toddler’s hamburger into bite-size chunks. The work causes Kubota to growl and cluck his tongue.

“Eat by yourself!” he yells at one medusa. “You are not a baby!” Then he laughs heartily. It’s an infectious, ratcheting laugh that makes his round face even rounder, the wrinkles describing circles around his eyes and mouth.

It is a full-time job, caring for the immortal jellyfish. When traveling abroad for academic conferences, Kubota has had to carry the medusas with him in a portable cooler. (In recent years he has been invited to deliver lectures in Cape Town; Xiamen, China; Lawrence, Kan.; and Plymouth, England.) He also travels to Kyoto, when he is obligated to attend administrative meetings at the university, but he returns the same night, an eight-hour round trip, in order not to miss a feeding."

This is amazing.  Think about the work that Maude Delap and Mary Lebour did with Jellyfish feeding (and see my previous post about Delap).  

Unfortunately, the article makes a misstep. The author states:

"Until recently, the notion that human beings might have anything of value to learn from a jellyfish would have been considered absurd. Your typical cnidarian does not, after all, appear to have much in common with a human being. It has no brains, for instance, nor a heart. It has a single orifice through which its food and waste pass — it eats, in other words, out of its own anus."

The article then goes on to suggest that the usefulness of jellyfish to understandings of human physiology is based on genetic linkages unveiled during the Human Genome Project. This, of course, is completely ridiculous.  Physiologists have utilized jellyfish in the laboratory, and extrapolated their findings to humans, for over 100 years. T.H. Morgan, Jacques Loeb, and Alfred Goldsborough Mayer all worked on jellyfish and they utilized their findings to talk about human heart, intestinal and nerve functions. I've written a letter to the editor. We'll see what happens...

The Truth about Zooborns: Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography

I was recently in La Jolla, California to research at the Scripps Institution and attend the annual History of Science Society conference. The Scripps Institution has an archive that houses some amazing papers, including the papers of T. Wayland Vaughn (a coral specialist) and William E. Ritter (the first director of Scripps). The SIO is a fascinating institution to study, because it was built as a marine laboratory, but quickly switched its focus to oceanography and the open ocean environment. The work at the SIO is performed mostly on the open ocean from vessels; they do much less in land laboratories than they do on boat laboratories.  La Jolla was a hard place to stay inside and research. Look at these views:

Sunset over the Scripps Pier.  All photos from personal collection.

Needless to say, I took a lot of breaks during my research trip. But, there are only so many days you can live with sand in your stockings before you search for a walk that won't result in such discomfort. Near the end of my research trip, I walked up to the Birch Aquarium (about a 5 minute walk from the main Scripps campus).  A public aquarium has been a part of the SIO in one form or another since 1902.   A public aquarium and museum were initially attached to the SIO to explain investigators' findings to the general public.  In 1992, the multi-million dollar Birch Aquarium was finished on an overlook above the SIO campus.  

The building looks small from the outside and I feared that this aquarium might be a let down (as most zoos and aquariums are to me).  I can't say I'm a huge fan of the public aquarium; they have a tendency to be a bit boring after you've been to one. But not Birch. I think I've found my favorite public aquarium!

The Birch is tasked with translating SIO findings to the public, and imbuing that public with a sense of the diversity in the ocean, and the danger that humans pose to the marine environment. They do this beautifully. One of my favorite exhibits was the global warming tanks. It is difficult to educate the public on global warming.  Give the subject too dire a sound and the viewer tunes out; paint too rosy a picture and no lesson is learned.  In the global warming section of the Birch, there was a lot of writing on the walls (literally) but the most interesting pieces in the room were the two aquariums.  In one, healthy corals painted a vibrant picture of underwater life: a National Geographic-esque image of the marine environment. Next to this aquarium was another, holding corals that have been bleached by the acidification of salt water (a process brought about by ocean temperature warming that is currently decimating coral colonies throughout the world). These whitish corals painted a stark contrast to the other aquarium environment, and I think, make a point that no amount of script and explanation on the walls ever could. 

the kelp forest at the Birch

"male seahorses spend most of their life pregnant" music to my eyes  

In addition to this display, the Aquarium boasts a shark tank, a touch tank, a kelp forest (amazing) and a whole room dedicated to the Birch's successful propagation of sea horses for scientific study and aquarium displays.  My favorite sea horse is now the potbellied sea horse.  

By far my favorite group of aquaria was the jellyfish section. It's a given that I'm going to like a jellyfish section in an aquarium. I write about jellyfish; I'm currently obsessed with jellyfish. But, it's not a given that I will love a jellyfish section. And I love love love  this one.  Why, you ask? The Birch Aquarium has dedicated a lot of its resources to propogating marine organisms for study in laboratories and for trading with other aquariums.  Seahorses, many species of which are slowly becoming endangered because of their supposed medicinal qualities and their use in the hobbyist community, are difficult to rear in captivity. The Birch has figured it out, and they rear and maintain these creatures in captivity to share with other public aquariums and scientists so that the wild supply need not be depleted anymore by these institutions.  They focus on jellyfish for another reason. 

Jellyfish are not endangered; actually, they are quite the opposite. As the oceans warm, jellyfish are thriving. And thriving is not necessarily a great thing (there is some question about whether global warming causes jellyfish blooms). Because jellyfish are really bottomless pits of food consumption. They are the slimers of the sea. They eat a lot. And, they really know how to reproduce. So, whether the theory of warming waters and jellyfish swarms is correct, the Birch would rather be safe than sorry.  They have succeeded in rearing both Aurelia Aurita  and Cassiopea Xamachana at the Aquarium. Awesome.  But they have gifted the public with tanks displaying the multiple stages of the jellyfish cycle. Mega Awesome. 

Lagoon Jellies in a Kreisel Tank at the Birch Aquarium

They have several tanks of adult jellies, including these Lagoon Jellies.

They also have a tank of polyps. The stationary lifecycle stage of the jellyfish. 

Jellyfish in their polyp form.  They look similar to sea anemones. 

And, they have a whole kreisel tank full of ephyrae (baby jellies that are asexually budded off of the polyp stage. I took a video because watching baby jellies is extremely calming and it's very rare to see these tiny organisms in the wild (you might swim into a group of slightly larger ephyrae while skipping school in South Florida, but that's a rare occurrence and not everyone is so lucky or unlucky).  

What makes the Birch Aquarium so amazing is that they unveil the aquarist process. The tanks are free standing, and the signs explain the triumphs and difficulties of keeping these animals in captivity. And, they also give a stark lesson about why aquarists and aquariums need to try to rear these organisms. The aquarium hobby, and the exotic animal trade in general, are hard on the marine environment.  We are consistently reminded that taking exotic terrestrial animals, such as lions and tigers and bears, is destructive to the ecosystem and the creature. There are laws protecting these megafauna. But rarely do zoos explain that they are breeding and rearing lions, not to be released into the wild again (a fanciful and somewhat difficult process) but so that they can be shipped to other zoos to alleviate the need for wild animals for public viewing and scientific study. And while some animals are released, on a whole, zoos breed captive animals.  This releases pressure on the wild populations, provides specimens and colonies for scientific study, and educates people, but is somewhat heart wrenching- probably the reason they don't tell the viewer the stark truth. So the zoo goers get these adorable pictures of baby animals, without the heartache of knowing that most of these animals will exist only in zoos or laboratories, bred to produce more of the same: zoo and scientific specimens. The ability to study animals in captivity leads to discoveries about wild organisms. In some instances, the zoo borns are the largest population of a species scientists have. There are amazing reasons to breed animals in captivity.  However, I'm not sure that zoo goers are apprised of all of the reasons for breeding programs in zoos.  I think they are truly tricked into thinking that these animals will be released into the wild. But zoo breeding is not a re-wilding procedure.

Sea horses are taken with impunity, for medicinal, hobbyist, scientific, and public aquarium use.  Jellyfish are taken, and inadvertently spread throughout the ocean, creating invasive issues and doing untold damage to marine environment. The Birch Aquarium is working to rear creatures to cut out the need to procure these creatures in the wild.  I love that they show the process; and that they tell the viewer the truth. The seahorses and jellyfishes that you see, they aren't going to be released into the wild. They are going to be released into another public aquarium. Or into a lab aquarium. And that's okay. Is there a way to transfer this truthful explanation of captive breeding into the way we look at zoos? Would this hurt visitors understanding of those institutions? It's something to think about- because all lions and tigers and bears may be zoo reared in the near future. And then how do we explain the captive breeding programs?

Good on you Birch Aquarium. Beautiful. Educational. Entertaining.

Physalia Physalis: A Mysterious Balloon Animal

For anyone who reads this blog, my obsession with jellyfish is well known.  They are such fascinating creatures and are the subject of my current (and next) dissertation chapter. One of the most feared jellyfish is the Portuguese Man O'War.  Its sting is debilitating, and can be deadly if not treated. Stories of swimmers becoming entangled in the tentacles of the Man O'War abound in my native Florida and in my immediate family. Concerns about their sting is not overblown: a Man O'War's sting is 75% as powerful as the cobra (Naja). In a word: Intense. 

The natural history of this organism is amazing.  The Man O'War is not a jellyfish, but is instead a siphonophore.  What's the difference? Siphonophorae, unlike medusae, are actually a collection of separate organisms called zooids. They co-exist as a colony, and cannot live separately, but they are not a single organismal system. How great is that?  The tentacles of the man o'war are separate organisms from the float. It's a complicated creature, the physalia. But what makes it so interesting to me is all that scientists don't know. Which is quite a bit.  

Biologists don't know how these animals breed, how they avert prey, their life cycle, or their general habits.  Why? 

The Portuguese Man O'War has never been kept successfully in captivity.   I've previously posted on the difficulties involved in maintaining jellyfish in captivity. They require very specific water movement, food, and temperatures.The Man O'War is a super special case. 

Unlike most other jellies, the Man O'war has a "float". This part of the organism is just as it sounds- part of the structure is filled with air, and floats along the ocean surface.  In fact, Man O'Wars are not individually mobile- they go where the current takes them (they don't attack people, but accidentally float into them).  In captivity, if they bump up against the side of a tank, their skin forms hard spots. These spots keep the organism from rolling; a behavior investigators believe is performed to keep the float wet. A tank to hold specimens would need to be roomy, so that the organisms could float without touching the side of their enclosure, as well as roomy enough to allow their particular rolling behavior. 

Besides being very big in diameter to allow room for maneuvering  a tank to maintain captive man o'wars needs to be very deep. The organism has super long tentacles (which are highly dangerous to other organisms because of the stinging nematocysts contained therein). When completely relaxed, some of the longer tentacles can reach over 9 meters. The organism can retract these tentacles, but it seems they are almost always extended in the natural environment. So, a tank would have to be very wide and very deep. And, it would need some type of water movement. 

Physalia cannot control their mobility. They belong to a family of pelagic organisms that are free floating (including the Velella Velella- commonly known as a "By-The-Wind-Sailor"- my favorite Cnidarian). Unlike jellies like Aurelia Aurita (moon jellies) that perform the characteristic contraction/pumping motion associated with jellyfish (although even Aurelia need some current or they get tired and die quickly in captivity), Siphonophorae like Physalia and Velella travel by currents.  Recreating this in a tank environment is difficult.  The continuous circular current of kreisel tank (utilized when keeping Aurelia in captivity) is perfect for organisms that live a submerged life; but it does little for an organism that lives on the surface. Investigators have tried many forms of tide in captivity:  utilizing a spray mechanism to create current and push the organism away from the side (this disoriented and tangled the jellies), keeping the jellies in cages in a moat (it mangled the tentacles), and utilizing structures that blocked the sides of the tank (but prevented the somersaulting motion needed to keep the float wet). The most advanced system has only succeeded in maintaining the organisms in captivity for about 6 months. 

Keeping marine organisms in captivity is only the first step to studying them. You must also keep them healthy in captivity and learn to mimic their natural environment. Once you master this, the organism might grow, produce sexual materials, and perhaps if you are lucky reproduce viable offspring.  If one organism does all of this unlikely stuff, you could possibly watch a new generation grow in captivity.  And this is really when you learn something. 

To date, investigators in scientific laboratories at universities and aquariums have struck out. And so, scientists are still guessing about the life cycle of these amazingly enigmatic creatures. In 2006, J. Pierce quoted the studies of Ernst Haeckel (1888), Robert Bigelow (1891), and George Parker(1932) regarding the physiology and supposed behavior of these organisms. That's a very long time for scientific theories about a non-extinct or even non-threatened organism to go unconfirmed or challenged.  Until the physalia can be kept in captivity, we may not know if the float can be deflated, or how these organisms reproduce. 

But don't despair: A succession of tanks, initiated by a theory by Robert Browne in 1901, has lead to a century of tanks built specially for rearing captive jellyfish and plankton. Yesterday, I visited the Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. There, I saw both Aurelia Aurita and Cassiopea Xamachana reared in that facility.  More on that adventure in my next post... 

Some awesome sources:

Pierce, J. (2006) "Aquarium Design for Portuguese Man-Of-War" International Zoo Yearbook 

Parker, G.H. (1932) "Neuromuscular Activities of the Fishing Filaments of Physalia" Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology

Bigelow, Robert (1891) "Notes on the physiology of Caravella maxima, Haeckel (Physalia caravella,

Eschscholtz)" Johns Hopkins University Circular

Haeckel, Ernst (1888) Report on the siphonophorae collected by H.M.S. Challenger during the years

1873–1896. Report on the Scientific Results of theVoyage of the H.M.S. Challenger, Zoology

Maude Delap: Jellyfish Goddess of the North Atlantic

Maude Delap. Jellyfish Goddess of the North  Atlantic

Maude collecting with two of her sisters on Valentia Island. 

These days, I'm in the midst of writing a chapter on keeping jellyfish alive in the laboratory for nerve physiology experiments.  After months of research in American scientific journals, I was basically set to write this story of Sisyphean struggle to maintain jellyfish in marine laboratories.  Man, this is hard work- they just don't want to swim, or eat or grow in captivity. I can just imagine my historical actors tossing their exasperated hands in the air in a bizarre parody of the Eureka! moment.  Replace "eureka" with something like "Bullshit" or "this is impossible" or try "I give up!" and you might come up with a more true-to-life scientific scene involving maintaining jellyfish in captivity before 1930.  And seriously, I feel for these people. Jellyfish didn't really want to concentrate.  They sting, they die, they turn into balls of smelly goo, and they don't have eyes or noticeable features so giving them a talking to is out of the question. It was a chapter about skirting scientific failure, and then, I found Maude.

Maude Delap was a naturalist's naturalist. Born in 1866, she was the 5th of 10 children, all interested in the natural world.  When she was 8 years old, her father (a reverend) moved the family to Valentia Island- a point in County Kerry off the extreme South West end of Ireland.  Always interested in the marine environment, her collecting was boosted by a visit to Valentia from E.T. Browne and other investigators from the Plymouth research station in England.  Delap was mentored by Browne (who was actually a bit younger than her but formally trained) and continued her work with jellyfish long after he left Valentia.

And, her work was fruitful.  Because Delap did something that Browne and other marine investigators could only dream of: she successfully raised jellyfish through larval into medusae forms in a home aquarium!

I'm sure you're not as excited by this as you should be (or I am).  This could come from two points of confusion:
1. what are the forms of medusae?
2. why is it important that she did this?

Jellyfish, which scientists commonly refer to as medusae, are the free swimming sexually mature part of the life cycle.  We see jellyfish and we think, oh- that's what a jellyfish looks like.  But have you ever thought about what a baby jellyfish looks like? It doesn't look like an adult form at all, in fact- it has it's own name!

This illustration is the lifecycle of obelia jellyfish.  The tree-like organism on the left side of diagram is called a polyp (this is probably a group of polyps formed asexually by strobilation). The polyps eventually release free swimming medusae, which need to grow to mature size. So why does this life cycle matter and why does Maude matter?

Because you can catch a medusa, a planula, and you can also find a hydroid. You can collect them from the sea and plunk them into an aquarium.  And chances are- you might get the medusa to produce eggs and sperm to create a planula. You might even get a planula to metamorphoze into a hydroid. And you might get a  hydroid to release a tiny medusa. But, you're not likely to get all of these.  Cultivating medusae through their whole lifecycle is super super hard. It's a finnicky beast.  It likes its water just so (and that changes from season to season). It likes its food just so (and that changes depending on what part of the life cycle its in).

Between 1899 and 1900, Maude Delap did it.  And she did it awesomely.  On June 21, 1899 she picked up an injured Chrysaora Isosceles off the beach.  She took it home and put it into her tank, and by the next day, she found  planula free floating.  They attached themselves to the tankside and were kept as small hydroids throughout the winter.  While many believed that invertebrates feed primarily on copepods and plankton, Delap found that in this stage, they preferred feeding on the panula of other jellyfish, especially sarsia.  By spring, she had small medusae and by May they reached full adult size with 24 tentacles. Unfortunately, the weather turned foul and Delap was unable to keep providing her beauties with their preferred food (including small fishes- something else the scientific community doubted jellyfish ate). They lost weight and eventually died.

Delap's work is still cited in major laboratory manuals on how to raise jellyfish. It's clearly written, and Delap states very clearly why she made the choices she did, the temperature and placement of her aquarium, her feeding strategies, and every other aspect of her work that would allow someone to copy it for future experiments. Published in The Irish Naturalist in 1901, it is so awesome.

Dorothy Cross, an artist, produced some artwork inspired by Delap in 2001. Below, find a link to her artwork and an awesome interview about Maude Delap's work from the BBC's Woman Hour:

Dorothy Cross | Artists' stories | Artists talking | a-n

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2001_40_thu_02.shtml

Maude Delap just changed the tenor of my chapter. Eureka!

'Wolf' Salmon

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/protecting-a-wolf-of-a-salmon/?smid=pl-share

The blog entry above looks at efforts to protect "river wolves"- 100+ lb salmon (not to be confused with Peruvian otters and Canadian River Wolves) found in China, Russia, and Mongolia.  These huge fish take years to mature, and breed very slowly, making them an especially vulnerable species to over fishing and loss of habitat. They exist in pretty remote areas, so studies have been limited, but it's believed that these fish can live 30+ years.

These animals are just now listed on the "Red List"- which is an international watch list of species that are in peril and need to be watched more closely.  Being included on the list doesn't necessarily do anything to protect the fish, but this blogger seems to think it's a step in the right direction.

In truth, it's hard to know how many fish species should be included under the category "endangered" or "threatened" because we know so little about underwater creatures. Fish are notoriously hard to count, and deep sea species, or species that exist in remote areas such as the river wolves, are hard to count. Almost as difficult, is to judge their current numbers against a baseline (or point of reference) for comparison.  If you see some fish now, how many might you have seen 10 years ago? 15 years ago? 100 years ago? For many species, this data just does not exist.

For an idea about how investigators establish baselines, take a look at this publication outlining the establishment of baselines for tropical fish in Florida reefs over a 20 year period. In this study, SCUBA divers visited established underwater points throughout the year. They visually counted and recorded the number and type of fishes they encountered.  This method is possible because of the clarity of water, but is not necessarily an option for establishing baselines for all marine organisms. It also presupposes manpower and access to areas that these animals visit.  For the other species, such as the "river wolves," investigators might pay more attention to folk stories or family histories of how many fishes were caught in the past.  While this might seem like a less precise measurement than the Florida study, it is a form of data that scientists can utilize to gauge population decrease over time.

It makes sense that many fish species don't show up on "endangered species" lists until there are few left. Even then, it's difficult to gauge the decimation of the actual population. But, we know that fish species, especially edible species, are consistently over fished and under protected. Let's hope inclusion on this list leads to conservation programs that bolster the population of huge fishes without alienating the native peoples that rely on them as a food source.

(un)Parallel Explorations: Deep Space and Deep Sea

As the last of the space shuttles find their homes in museums throughout the United States, it is interesting to think of the intertwined vision of deep space and deep sea exploration. The belief that exploring the sea is similar to exploring space is entrenched in our cultural understanding of the ocean. Play the clip above- the trailer for James Cameron's "Aliens of the Deep".  In the trailer, the deep sea is directly correlated to deep space.  And deep space exploration is easy according to Cameron:

"We need to take everything we know about deep sea exploration and apply it to space."

This is a particularly misleading comment.  It suggests that sea and space are similar, but it also suggests that we know bunches about deep sea exploration.  Enough, it seems, to apply it to space exploration.  But Cameron has jumped the gun: deep sea exploration isn't close to being ready for other applications. And, the constant application of the alien concept of space to deep sea exploration might actually be hurting the endeavor.  So, how are these two forms of exploration similar, and how are they different? Let's check it out:

Both outer space and deep sea carry a sense of "otherness" in cultural conceptions.  Obviously, this stems from a sense of unknown vastness- but it also contributes to a sense of sameness that might be misleading- deep space and the deep sea are definitely not the same thing. Our knowledge of the deep sea environment has been limited to dredging of the sea bottom (a very small portion of the sea bottom)- a technique that is just basically the most haphazard form of sampling available and which kills most of the animals before they ever reach the surface- to very limited deep sea dives in manned and unmanned submersibles. The earth's deep sea depths continue to offer scientists and the public surprises:  the odds of finding new species (besides insects) in the terrestrial environment are very low, but the expectation of finding new species in the ocean are very high. In truth, we still have a very limited idea about deep sea environments.  But this unknown does not equal unknowable (in the way that deep space is still years away from even technically capable of being explored).  Cultural conceptions of the sea may too closely resemble conversations people have about space.  If people are convinced that the deep sea is unknowable and too vast to be explored, how might this affect funding and ideas about exploring these depths.  The depths of the sea are accessible! But, we need money to get there- so how does deep sea exploration funding match up with space exploration?

There's been a lot of talk about space funding recently.  NASA is being cut back and the age of commercial space exploration is here.  But before this era, there was NASA- and it was a huge force with a lot of funding. So where does deep sea exploration fit in? There has never been a deep-sea NASA-like initiative.  In fact, although exploration of the ocean is older, it has been shuttled between many different agencies in the government, meaning that funding is never quite clear.  In a recent 3 part series, scientists at the blog deepseanews.com called for an Ocean NASA (Which they call OSEA- Ocean Science Exploration Agency). part 1, part 2, and part 3 Recently, funding for ocean exploration and research has been cut without the public acknowledgement.  (see the previous post on Alvin or Part 1 and 2 above for information on these cuts) So, budgets are being cut on NASA and ocean exploration- but ocean exploration had less direct funding in the first place. So, how are these cuts affecting exploration and research?

Space X launched its first commercial rocket to the International Space Station in early October.  But what's up with deep sea exploration? In March, James Cameron made a solo dive to the Mariana(s) Trench in the Deep Sea Challenger. The vehicle and the expedition were mostly funded by corporate and private money (including Cameron and Rolex).  And as exciting as it was for the general public, it raises some interesting questions: who has access to the information collected? is this a return to a class based scientific endeavor? And for me, a question: what does it mean that a filmmaker, instead of a scientist, was the first solo person to reach this deep sea environment and introduce it to a larger audience (he's making a 3D film of his dive)? As some people have said, it's actually safer for an unmanned submersible to descend to those depths.The only other individuals to reach these depths were Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh- two Oceanographers in 1960.

The DeepSeaChallenger- both images from National Geographic. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120325-james-cameron-mariana-trench-challenger-deepest-returns-science-sub/

Does the work of James Cameron somehow perpetuate a belief of the deep sea environment as an environment that is more fictional than scientific?   Does his manned dive somehow perpetuate these somewhat misleading intersections between deep space and deep sea explorations?  Is this helpful to the scientific endeavor or just another way to give the public a vision of what they've come to expect?

It is time that deep space and deep sea exploration become unwound. It's really not serving marine science.  But how can we go about untangling the dual images of the extremely different endeavors?

The Eye of a Kraken is probably twice as big!

A few days ago, NPR reported  that a huge eye had washed up on Pompano Beach (very close to one of my hometowns: Plantation) and asked readers to guess what type of creature might have been the original owner of the giant peeper.

The answers to the question suggest that people are still pretty confused about what may or may live in the ocean's depths.  They run the gamut from:

-multiple types of whales
-giant squid
-E.T.
-A/The Kraken (I'm a bit confused about kraken. Are there more than one? Only one?) 
-Mastodons
-Big Foot
-swordfish

Turns out- it's probably a female swordfish.  Scientists suggest that the bone around the eye suggest it is a fish (whale's actually have pretty small eyes).  The largest swordfish ever caught was 612 pounds.  Interestingly, it also appears that the eye was removed by a professional:  there are tool marks on the bone, suggesting that a fisherman tossed the eye back into the water after removing it from his/her catch. 

So- not extraterrestrial or inexplicable. But still, pretty cool. I'm guessing the Kraken eye is way bigger. Just saying.