(no subject)

( Whine )

I *am* getting better. I just resent this week.

One silver lining: being sick has allowed my ankles to continue to rest from the sprains earlier this summer.

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Last night we watched Netflix documentary Mission Blue: both wonderful and heartbreaking. http://mission-blue.org/ Sylvia Earle's life is amazing to ponder: a marine botanist and one of the first to use scuba gear, one of the first aquanauts, pioneer for women scientists, and witness to what may be the beginning of one of the great extinctions.

50% of coral reefs gone?

My recent reading has led me to spend time thinking about how the oceans probably have incredible evolutionary information. While plants may be the extremely long lived creatures of the land, underneath the waves animals live for a very long time:

There’s a 2,742-year-old Gerardia coral, and nearby, the 4,265-year-old Leiopathes, a
black coral related to sea anemones, both discovered in exceedingly deep waters off
the Hawaiian archipelago using a submersible vehicle—approximately 1,200 feet
down. Older still, in Arctic waters off the Norwegian shelf lives the 6,000-year-old
Lophelia pertusa coral, around 330 feet down.

The oldest animal on the planet could be the 15,000-year-old Anoxycalyx joubini
volcano sponge off the McMurdo shelf in Antarctica. I’m not sure of their exact depth,
but no one has visited the oldest among them face-to-face, in fact, as they were
found using a SCINI ROV—that’s “Submersible Capable of under Ice Navigation
and Imaging Remotely Operated Vehicle.”

Sussman, Rachel; Zimmer, Carl; Obrist, Hans Ulrich (2014-06-03). The Oldest Living Things in the World (Page 265). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.

I tell myself that shallow coral reefs are unlikely to harbor ancient individuals, what with sea level changes and so on, but the species could have been ancient: ecological niches effectively and efficiently filled since the niche was discovered now empty?

And the fish stocks plummeting?

What heartbreak. What blindness. Sylvia Earle's eyes are wide open, and this documentary helps us all see.

(no subject)

Just listened to Hari S. on the PBS New Hour ask, "What was the most important thing you learned in your first job?" as part of the Labor Day weekend observation.

Put the bread and eggs on the top of the bag.

You?