Scientists investigating the potential effects of weightlessness on atronauts in zero-gravity environments recently made an interesting - and perhaps surprising? - discovery: fish can get “seasick.” Not a comfortable prospect for water-borne creatures, certainly, but researches are hoping that the results of their studies will help them understand the way the brain works in environments in which the body struggles to locate itself in three dimensional space.
Around four dozen fish were taken (in their aquarium) up in a plane, and then the plane went into a sharp dive to simulate a gravity-free environment. Several of the fish apparently became disoriented and started swimming around in circles. One researcher even commented that it looked like they were “about to vomit,” although that might be a little tough to verify.
Fish generally locate themselves in three-dimensional space using a variety of methods (similar to humans and their own complex vestibular systems), although fish have something called an “otolith,” or “ear stone,” which works in much the way liquid sloshing in our inner ears helps us balance. The researchers speculated that the seasickness the fish experienced was largely due to water disturbances, vibrations, and loss of visual information; they did not comment on the free-fall effect on the otoliths.
With a plummeting economy, increased air pollution, threats of radical climate change, and peak oil just around the corner, many scientists are very busy looking for alternative energy resources.One possibility may come as a surprise, even for shore-dwellers: using sea algae as biofuel.
Scientists have been toying with the idea since the 1950s, but have begun taking a closer look at algae alternatives, as recent research has indicated that not only might algae produce a lot of oil – as much as 15 times more per acre than other plants used for the same purpose, such as corn – but it also seems that algae can grow in salt-, fresh-, or even contaminated water, and may even thrive on greenhouses gases, thus increasing its obvious ecological benefits.
Research is still in the very early stages, but work is being done at multiple sites to develop the economic feasibility of the process.Not only is seaweed a powerful source of nutrients, a rich compost, and a beneficial additive to a number of other health and beauty products.It may be an even more varied resource than we’d thought.
Researchers in both Antarctica and the waters south of Tasmania have been exploring uncharted underwater terrain, including over a hundred undersea mountains, some as high as 1,640 feet, and trenches even larger than the Grand Canyon.These deep sea topographies have proven to be home to thousands of species of fish, sponges, corals, mollusks, crustaceans, and other forms of aquatic life.Many of these animals are completely new to science, or are previously unrecorded forms of known species, for example:
In order: brittlestar, squid, deep sea jellyfish, fish, sea squirt, “psychedelic” octopus.
The researchers in Antarctica claim that the species have come to their attention due to the break up former ice sheets, a result of global warming trends.The changes in global temperature have created a number of radical shifts in marine ecology.Scientists don’t yet know how great the extent of this impact will be, nor how much of an effect it will have on shallower water ecosystems, such as those farther north used for commercial fishing operations.
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