Boffins spot 'faceless fish' in strange alien environment

Scientific expeditions into the deep, deep ocean are like buses: none for ages, then suddenly along come two at once! China's Jiaolong submersible went the deepest: on Tuesday it sank to 6,699 metres below the waves. In so doing it entered the Mariana Trench. Along the way it spotted what state-directed organ Xinhua describes …

[Anonymous Coward]

Well...

We're about to start seeing a whole different level of weird when it comes to chinese street food.

[jake]

One wonders ...

... would a vegan eat a faceless fish?

[m0rt]

Re: One wonders ...

...or indeed - would a faceless fish eat* a vegan?

*or dissolve, ingest, take over the mind of...whatever seems fitting for the faceless ones.**

** I, for one, welcome our faceless overlords...

[Chemical Bob]

Re: One wonders ...

...would a fishless face eat a vegan?

[Evil Auditor]

Faceless alien

Does it have a protruding tongue sporting its own set of teeth?

[Dave 126]

Re: Faceless alien

Dunno, but the Goblin Shark is pretty damned Giger-esque! It's found off the coast of Japan.

Here's GIF: http://imgur.com/pBGgLvn

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Certainly looks like something that...

... filtered down from stars before the dawn of man, sank beneath the waves, and will rise again when the stars are right

[Anonymous Coward]

It's odd

that we know more about deep space than we do about our own oceans..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's odd

...or our own minds.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: It's odd

I know my own mind, just as soon as my wife tells me what to think.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Re: It's odd

I think the technical term is 'a frank exchange of views'.

[King Jack]

Re: It's odd

The sea weighs. You cannot go down there without getting crushed.

[Pascal Monett]

Re: "The sea weighs"

Yup, one atmosphere every 10 meters down. There's only so much pressure any material can cope with before being crushed.

Space is only 0 atmospheres as far as you can go. We know how to handle that now.

[Anonymous Coward]

"But that's partly because people only rarely look into the abyss: the Australian expedition is exploring some local waters for the first time, largely because it's rather tricky operating at such depths."

Don't think you have to go to such exterme depths to find stuff no-one else has seen before. Seem to remember a TV documentary a few years ago about a project diving around a continental shelf going down to the absolute limits of scuba diving where no-one had done before and it seemed they were coming up from dives with examples of new species every time.

[Triggerfish]

I seem to remember a few years back when they were doing an ocean survey of species they were pretty much finding new species daily.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

So who is making all these new species?

I blame Dawkins

[Kane]

The Deep Ones...

"The Register imagines Deep Ones were not disturbed, or Xinhua would be reporting a rather different end to the dive."

I think they wouldn't be reporting anything, tbh.

All Hail Father Dagon! All Hail Mother Hydra! All Hail Cthulhu!

[Stoneshop]

Re: The Deep Ones...

I think they wouldn't be reporting anything, tbh.

Unless the Deep Ones have kept up with technology and are now able to summon a global EMP, it would still take a not infinitesimally small time interval between disturbance and total worldwide annihilation, in which case at least some news covfefe will get out.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: The Deep Ones...

Just as long as the Kraken is not awakened.

[Meph]

Re: The Deep Ones...

.. and ten billion sushi dinners cry out in vengeance?

[Pompous Git]

Re: The Deep Ones...

"Just as long as the Kraken is not awakened."

The Kraken has been released! On Australian TV even:

Release the Kraken!

[Alistair]

Re: The Deep Ones...

I just wish it didn't cost so much to Release The Kraken around here.

[Anonymous Coward]

".....crews peer into the abyss and find weird things NOT looking back"

One assumes the weird things are blind, and/or there is insufficient light.

[Little Mouse]

Re: ".....crews peer into the abyss and find weird things NOT looking back"

One also assumes that it is indeed the "face" end that we're looking at.

Oooh! That one just winked at me!

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: ".....crews peer into the abyss and find weird things NOT looking back"

>Oooh! That one just winked at me!

With its one eye ?

[Anonymous Coward]

But how big is it

We'd know exactly if they had a ruler that wasn't broken.

[Triggerfish]

Re: But how big is it

That's what happens when you try and measure non Euclidean beings.

[Stevie]

Bah!

The Deep One threat at abyssal depths is not great. However, the chance of crashing into a wandering Star Spawn taking a constitutional is frighteningly real.

[strum]

>6,699 metres

Why didn't they claim 6700m? I mean - who could have checked?

[Captain DaFt]

Think about it.

6700 is just another number, but 6699 is 69 wrapped in 69!

Gotta play to the press ya know. :)

[PNGuinn]

6699 is 69 wrapped in 69

And any fule kno fish should be wrapped in newspaper.

After being doused with salt and non brewed condiment.

[jake]

Re: 6699 is 69 wrapped in 69

Non-brewed condiment ... right up there near the top, alongside watery bacon, on the "friends don't let friends ..." listie.

[Pompous Git]

Re: 6699 is 69 wrapped in 69

"right up there near the top, alongside watery bacon, on the "friends don't let friends ..." listie."

I had to look it up! I'd never even heard of it.

Last weekend there was a report on the telly about a bloke in Stanthorpe who made a barrel of vinegar in his farm shed for fun 12 years ago. Today he's rolling in money. And still having fun!

High-tech vinegar a success story of the new bush 'gold rush'

It's seriously nice vinegar. I always grab a couple of bottles when I visit my friends in Tenterfield.

[jake]

Re: 6699 is 69 wrapped in 69

I made my first vinegar in 1967. From a bit of my Grandfather's mother & some hard cider. It was his grandmother's mother to begin with. The ol' girl is still alive & kicking.

[Pompous Git]

Re: 6699 is 69 wrapped in 69

I see what you did there :-) Teasing them who think food-like substances are actual food. Never got around to vinegar, except by accident once and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Made beer (from malt, not extract), wine, ham, cheese (hard as well as soft), pasta, slaughtered and butchered... Mrs Git just came home so time to put the finishing touches on dinner: pollo alla diavolo made with a very plump young free-range Light Sussex cockerel.

PS The Linotype hasn't landed yet. You sure you didn't put it into orbit? You must be even strongerer than Auntie Jack!

[harmjschoonhoven]

6,699 metres below the waves

6700m below the wave-tops.

Solved that for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

That Theresa May gets everywhere doesn't she?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

>That Theresa May gets everywhere doesn't she?

Well Strong and stable is what you need at 6700m deep

[Axman]

New Brighton

You don't have to dive down that deep to find weird stuff... I once went plodging off New Brighton beach and unfortunately tripped and went a foot under the waves. I never want to make the discovery I did that day again.

[Axman]

...And we thought nasal hair was bad!

Imagine having to put up with dorsal, ventral and pectoral fin hair

[caffeine addict]

Don't fish from deep down have a tendency to distort (and explode) when brought up to sea level? What did it look like when it was at the right depth?

( "Sea level" is a particularly stupid term when you're talking about underwater. It's more "sky level", isn't it? )

[Kernel]

Quite possibly it looked much the same - it's the gas filled swim bladder that expands significantly if the fish can't release gas fast enough, not the liquid/solid part of the body

I'm no expert, but I would guess that it is a fairly primitive design and may not have a swim bladder at all - or if it does, it may be one of the early types that's directly connected to the mouth, allowing easy and rapid venting of excess pressure. But I going to place my money on no swim bladder.

[handleoclast]

Nietzsche

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

[Gobhicks]

The Esoteric Order of Dagon called...

They want their Thing back.

[Alistair]

The youngest and I are in the midst of

Evolution, the Full Story, again -- I think this is 3rd pass through for nightime reading. The image strikes me as quite Pederpes like. Perhaps Pederpes made a shot at land, saw what was coming and headed back down below to avoid us?

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Marine live is weird.