Scientists have demonstrated how some
of the smallest creatures in the ocean could have the same outsized impact
under the waves – with swarms of marine organisms inadvertently producing
powerful currents that mix and churn a turbulent undersea environment.
“Right now a lot of our ocean
climate models don’t include the effect of animals, or if they do it’s as
passive participants in the process”. Strength in numbers, it turns out, as
swarms of the creatures migrate daily in vertical columns, feeding at the ocean
surface by night, before retreating hundreds of metres deep by day.
“You have this massive migration
vertically every day of literally trillions of organisms”, Dabiri told
NPR. “As they start swimming upward, each of them kicks a little bit of
fluid backward”. The team discovered the animals’ passing didn’t just
distribute water in small, localised regions, but churned significant volumes
of proxy ocean pretty much everywhere they went.
So far, these effects have only been
demonstrated in the lab, but if the same thing is taking place out in the real
world, biologists and oceanographers will need to rethink how marine life
contributes to ocean turbulence – especially since the same thing could be
happening with bigger animals, such as jellyfish, squid, fish, and even large
mammals. (1)
Ancient civilizations thought of the
cosmos as something alive.
Then came Descartes, Galileo and
modern science.
And we “discovered” the “objective”
world of phenomena…
We suddenly “knew” we lived in a cold
lifeless cosmos.
And we developed great science…
While shrimps were laughing at us…
The cosmos is still alive.
It always was.
It is just us who died.
Watch that shrimp you are cooking. It
is not a shrimp.
It is the universe itself. Boiling
with fierce power.
Just… add a pinch of salt.
Yes. Now it’s better.
Now come on.
Let’s eat my daughter…
