SAVE THE PLANKTON: So much more than whale food

Marineboffins have spent three and half years at sea analysing plankton (singular: plankter) in the most comprehensive analysis of the organisms to have ever taken place. Plankton are, by all accounts, a mysterious bunch of creatures. They are not defined by a phylogenetic or taxonomic classification, but rather by their …

[Chazmon]

A couple of scientific distinctions:

Plankton is pretty much anything which cannot make headway against the current so this also includes jellyfish (and really weak swimmers)

Zoo plankton is the microscopic swimmy stuff (technical term)

Phytoplankton are the ones which photosynthesize and start the food chain (and shore up life on earth)

[Chris 244]

Jellyfish, really?

(quick Google search)

Huh, krill also. Have an upvote. Minor correction though, zooplankton is a trophic group so doesn't need to be microscopic to fall in this group. Jellies are zooplankton.

[Martin Budden]

So if I were to be swept through the Horizontal Falls I would technically be a plankter? Cool!

[Tom 7]

How much more was there before we nearly wiped out the whales.

Someone spotted that most whales dive deep to get their food but poo at the surface. When there where a lot of whales they would have provided a massive amount of nutrients at the surface for a much larger eco system.

When we piss in our chips...

[x 7]

Re: How much more was there before we nearly wiped out the whales.

So killing whales gives us cleaner beaches for swimming? Lets eat more whale meat

[ElectricRook]

Re: How much more was there before we nearly wiped out the whales.

Relatively speaking, the ocean is fantastically huge, and whales are very small . . . ecosystem wise that is. whales eat and poop out a very small amount of plankton compared to the amount that dies every day .

[Hans 1]

"Plankton are much more than just food for the whales. Although tiny, these organisms are a vital part of the Earth's life support system, providing half of the oxygen generated each year on Earth by photosynthesis and lying at the base of marine food chains on which all other ocean life depends."

This was already known when I was in primary school, and I am reasonably old, have reached about "half-life".

[breakfast]

You've reached Half Life? Wait until you reach Deus Ex, you'll love it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Old...news?

> This was already known when I was in primary school...

Pretty much all the facts in this article are of that type, since the entire article may be summed up as "We cruised the Seas for three years having fun and doing a lot of ocean research along the way."

[Roger Kynaston]

Standards please

87000 miles or more than three times round the world ...

We need an El Reg standard on this. How many blue whales laid end to end is that?

Cracking research though so a virtual beer to the research team.

[Sir Sham Cad]

Re: Standards please

The El Reg standard unit for Length is the Linguine. 87000 miles is, I think we all agree, best expressed as 1000114955.742 Linguine.

[x 7]

Re: Standards please

is a linguine the same as a langoustine?

[oolor]

Re: Standards please

>is a linguine the same as a langoustine?

No, a langoustine is 6.35*10^-4 blue whales longer.

[JonP]

Re: Standards please

best expressed as 1000114955.742 Linguine.

or approximately 1 Giga Linguine

[Ugotta B. Kiddingme]

mouthful of seawater? No thanks.

"... there are roughly 200 million viruses in every mouthful of seawater, and most of those viruses are infecting the roughly 20 million bacteria found in every mouthful of seawater."

um... ew.

[NumptyScrub]

Re: mouthful of seawater? No thanks.

20 million bacteria (or 200 million viruses) in a mouthful of seawater is apparently a tiny fraction of the potentially >20 billion microbes already present in the mouth. You could advance the argument that the mouth is contaminating the seawater, rather than the other way round... ^^;

You probably don't want to think about the number of bacteria in a "lungful of air" either. Have a pint, you're looking a bit peaky there...

[Triggerfish]

Re: mouthful of seawater? No thanks.

Its pretty common among my diving buddies who are in the water most everyday especially tropical water to take a few days off if they get a large cut it turns into a sore very fast with all of the contact with seawater at which point its often anti biotics needed to clear it.

The other habit picked up from them is to wash your ears out after each dive with fresh water, ear infections can be pretty common otherwise if you dive a lot.

[x 7]

Re: mouthful of seawater? No thanks.

sounds like swimming in urine would be safer

[Richard Altmann]

Re: mouthful of seawater? No thanks.

It is urine

[Pascal Monett]

200 million viruses in every mouthful of seawater

That's it.

I'm never getting near an ocean again.

[Fungus Bob]

Re: 200 million viruses in every mouthful of seawater

We can fix that by dumping a shitload of Listerine in the ocean.

Mine's the one that smells minty fresh...

[herman]

Uhmmm, yeah, millions of reasons why not to drink sea water, apart from the usual fish and whale poop.

[Will Godfrey]

What's your problem? You seem quite happy to inhale Tree poop.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Day time poop only.

[Paul Crawford]

Is it not closer to tree cum then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, one of my coworkers nearly died.

He had been in the company washroom and there emerged from a nearby stall a malodorous stink of the usual variety. His reaction was within normal limits at first. Then he suddenly remembered from school lessons that 'smell' was not based on EM Field theory, but was in fact physically carried by actual particles of three dimensional matter that had recently emerged from wherever they'd been so recently stored.

He nearly died from a combination of holding his breath for three minutes, combined with the mental stress of OCD overload.

[Fungus Bob]

Re: Once upon a time...

Stop calling it OCD, the proper name is CDO (it's alphabetical)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Once upon a time...

Useful hint for other sufferers of this condition:

Bathrooms come supplied with handy filter paper. One square bunched and inserted into each of the nasal tubes, followed by careful breaths will protect against the worst effects for both health and experience. If encountering a bathroom without those supplies, go elsewhere immediately.

[Donkey Molestor X]

What is this envi-RO-mentl FAGGOTRY doing on this site? I worship at the church of Lewis Page and Tim Worstall and believe that all environmentalists are evil hippies and that nuclear power plants are safe and never killed anybody never no how nor ever made large swaths of the earth uninhabitable and solar power plants and electric cars come from the DEVIL.

Fuck the plankton and fuck this gay Earth. I'M ROLLIN' COAL

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Then you should be thinking of a way to economically harvest the plankton and either extract metals from it (Tim) or weaponise it (Lewis)

Either way; we need to kill a few whales to save a trillion plankton...

[x 7]

it shouldn't be beyond the realms of science to designer-gene a copepod which extracted dissolved gold from seawater and desposited it into its chitin shell

[Uffish]

"a fabulous, three year voyage around the world in a schooner"

Thanks el Reg. I used to think that I had a pretty good job but your boffinery reports of atom smashing, space exploration and marine studies etc make me realize how dull my life is.

[Fungus Bob]

Re: "a fabulous, three year voyage around the world in a schooner"

Don't blame The Reg, its your life so shut up and fix it. For example, one can zing up one's life rather inexpensively with a portable generator and modest selection of liquids...

[Uffish]

Re: "zing"

If you had spent less time watching adverts and TV series you might have caught my rather convoluted praise of The Register for their articles. Still, each to his own way of thinking.

[Robert Helpmann??]

Re: "a fabulous, three year voyage around the world in a schooner"

If you really want adventure, you might consider heading South. Here, you can borrow my coat. You'll need it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fish, plankton, sea greens ... Protein from the sea

-- box

[Christian Berger]

There's a 1970s German apocalyptic Sci-Fi series

where the apocalypse mostly has been brought along by 2 tankers of pesticides colliding in 1986 which wiped out the marine ecosystem which was already weakened by pollution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4PQ2RwddmI