Mysterious Balls of Goo Are Rolling Onto American Beaches

A salp chain hangs suspended in the open ocean near Bali, Indonesia.

 
PHOTOGRAPH BY REINHARD DIRSCHERL, ULLSTEIN BILD/GETTY IMAGES

By Rachel Kaufman, National Geographic 

PUBLISHED JULY 22, 2015

Stranded jellyfish are common sights along beaches around the world. Some places can see up to a billion animals coating the sand. But beach-goers along the U.S. East Coast are running across a surprising sight this summer: thousands of knuckle-size, gelatinous blobs washing up from the surf.

Often called "jellyfish eggs" for their superficial resemblance, these creatures are called salps and they're more closely related to people than they are to jellyfish.

In fact, the only thing salps and jellyfish have in common is that both are gelatinous and both float around in the ocean, says Larry Madin, executive vice president and director of research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Changes in wind direction or water currents will push the barrel-shaped animals on to beaches, which happens with some regularity, says Paul Bologna, director of the marine biology and coastal sciences program at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

That’s what happened in Ocean City, Maryland, on July 11 and 12, and it’s what’s happened up in Cape Cod, where Madin says he’s heard reports of salp strandings this summer.

The good news is, they're entirely harmless, unlike some of the other gelatinous things people have reported seeing on beaches in recent years. A Portuguese man-of-war washed up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, last week and Bologna says last year a number of box jellies were sighted off the New Jersey coast.

A Weird Sex Life

Salps are part of a group called tunicates, says Madin, a tunicate specialist. And members of this group have a kind of primitive backbone, which jellies lack. The animals can also "give birth" to long chains of clones, and recent research finds that they may actually be a weapon against global warming.

Sometimes referred to as "jellyfish eggs," salps are the latest gelatinous animal to wash ashore along the U.S. east coast.

 
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS COMBS, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The thumbnail-size salps most commonly sighted on beaches are one of about 50 species which range from Antarctica to just south of the Arctic. Some species can get up to almost a foot (30 centimeters) long.

Part of their life cycle involves asexual budding, where one salp creates a chain of hermaphroditic clones that stay connected. The chains in some species can get up to 50 feet (15 meters) long. Sometimes, Madin says, the salp chain comes out in shapes; one species creates a wheel of salps, while another species organizes its chains into a double helix.

Eventually, the salp chains break apart. All the individuals that are released turn into females containing one egg. Males from a previous generation of salps will fertilize the females, producing an embryo. The "mother" then develops testes and goes on to fertilize the eggs of other nearby salps, all while the embryo continues to grow inside of it. That embryo eventually pops out and grows up to create another chain of clones.

A salp's ability to mate and combine different genetic material keeps populations healthy, says Madin, while their cloning abilities let them reproduce very quickly. (See "Huge Swarm of Gelatinous Sea Creatures Imaged in 3-D.")

A "Weapon" Against Climate Change

Salps' cloning tendencies also let them take advantage of algae blooms. The animals gorge themselves on the algae and pump out chains of salp babies. All that eating also produces large fecal pellets that "sink rapidly, as much as a thousand meters a day," Madin says.

This is a salp's secret weapon against climate change. The algae that they eat uses carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to grow. The salps then eat the algae and all that carbon. When the animals produce their pellets, that carbon sinks to the bottom of the ocean where it's essentially removed from the carbon cycle.

Essentially, salps repackage carbon into big pieces that sink very quickly into the ocean, says Bologna. "It's one way of trying to balance out how much CO2 is in the atmosphere."

Madin is skeptical that the salps will be able to keep up with the increased carbon in the atmosphere, but notes that salps can eat much smaller particles of plankton than animals like crustaceans and copepods. "One thing we see with warming temperatures is that the types of phytoplankton species are changing from larger ones, like diatoms, to smaller ones which we call picoplankton," he explains.

So "salps may have a competitive advantage as the oceans grow warmer," Madin says, because they'll be able to eat the really small plant plankton that will become more common.

Which means we may see more and more of these gelatinous creatures washing up onto beaches in the near future.

Scientists Unravel the Mystery Behind Cotton Candy-like “Hair Ice”

Hair ice -- have you heard of it? The rare ice grows upward, forming fine, hair-like filaments that form a glacial toupee of frost atop rotting wood.

"Hair ice grows mostly during the night and melts again when the sun rises. It's invisible in the snow and inconspicuous in hoarfrost," says biologist Gisela Preuss.

Scientists have now filled in a major gap in our understanding of the ice's formation: the fungus Exidiopsis effusa. When the temperature dips below freezing on humid winter evenings, hair ice springs out of rotting tree branches that house E. effusa.

Upon examining samples of melted hair ice, researchers identified the organic compounds lignin and tannin, metabolic byproducts of fungal activity.

"The action of the fungus is to enable the ice to form thin hairs -- with a diameter of about 0.01 mm -- and to keep this shape over many hours at temperatures close to [freezing]," explains Christian Matzler, a physicist at Switzerland's University of Bern. "Our hypothesis includes that the hairs are stabilized by a recrystallization inhibitor that is provided by the fungus."

Hair ice has been the focus of scientific investigation since 1918; it took nearly a century to understand fully because the phenomenon is so rare.

Click here to read the full study about hair ice in the open-access journal Biogeosciences

Fighting Octopuses Video Is First to Show How They "Talk"

Standing tall, arms spread, changing colors—them's fighting words for anoctopus.

Until recently, scientists thought the ocean dwellers didn't communicate with one another much at all. Rather than sending signals with their skin color and texture, octopuses—mostly solitary, except during mating—were thought to camouflage themselves with it.

But new video evidence suggests at least one kind of octopus—the common Sydney octopus (Octopus tetricus)—sends cues to its rivals about whether it will flee or flight. (Also see "Social Octopus Species Shatters Beliefs About Ocean Dwellers.")

David Scheel, a marine biologist at Alaska Pacific University, and colleagues shot the footage off southeastern Australia—the first evidence that fighting octopuses broadcast their intentions to one another.

Living to Fight Another Day

The common Sydney octopus, also known as the gloomy octopus, were thought to be very independent: When they do come together to mate, the female often eats the male afterward.

So the researchers were surprised that Sydney octopuses at their research site seemed to be interacting regularly.

"The expectation has been that if two octopuses meet, the big one eats the smaller one," says Scheel, who presented the initial findings at a recent Animal Behavior Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

"But if octopuses encounter each other routinely, they can't cannibalize each other all the time."

Instead, it makes sense that the octopuses would need to communicate to either escalate or avoid conflict—which is exactly what the team found. (See "Journey of Octopus Discovery Reveals Them to Be Playful, Curious, Smart.")

Scheel and his colleagues observed a range of aggressive interactions between octopuses—everything from simply reaching out toward another octopus, to chases, to grappling. Of all these incidents, only a fraction were full-blown fights.

To get their point across, octopuses used a suite of dramatic behaviors such as spreading their arms wide, standing tall, raising their mantles—a structure that holds all their organs—like a crest above their eyes, and climbing on top of objects, the team observed. (See beautiful octopus pictures.)

The animals also changed color depending on their behavior: Aggressive octopuses tended to become darker, while fleeing octopuses were much paler.

"If one octopus signals that he's coming over and not going to back down, and the other signals he is going to run away, that can end the interaction," says Scheel.

"Whereas if they both signal that they're not going to back down, those are the [incidents] that tend to escalate."

Fight or Flight

This octopus body language likely occurs in more species, says Christine Huffard, a senior research technician at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who was not involved in the new research.

"I would love to see people study this in different octopus species in the wild, but also research the mechanisms behind it," Huffard says. "It's hard to know whether it's an intentional versus a physiological response. For instance, we blush. We don't say, 'Hey, body, tell this person I'm embarrassed.' It's just something that happens." ("Watch: Stealthy Octopus Leaps From Water and Attacks Crab.")

Huffard agrees with Scheel and his colleagues that it's likely the octopuses are signaling to avoid costly battles.

When octopuses fight, the larger one nearly always wins.

"If you know from the beginning that you're probably going to lose or you're not really willing to give up an arm, you might as well tell your opponent that you don't want a fight."

Watch 2 Men Save a Beached Great White Shark

A new video shows the dramatic rescue of a beached great white shark off the coast of Chatham, Mass. on Monday.

The video, posted to YouTube, shows the great white gasping for breath, its tail desperately flipping on the beach, as onlookers watch, concerned. The film then cuts to two men—who have been identifiedas harbormaster Stuart Smith and shark expert Gregory Skomal—who are shown scooping buckets of water and splashing the shark, which at first is unresponsive, then shudders awake to cheers and encouragement. The men then tie a string onto the weakened shark’s tail and connect it to a boat, which pulls the shark into the water.

The men gingerly untie the string from the shark’s tail and guide it into the open water by boat.

“Thirty years ago, they’d want to kill it and now they want to save it,” Smith remembered Skomal saying at the time.

A Century of Bicycling History in 17 Pictures

As cyclists of the 102nd Tour de France begin the epic race, we look at the world of cycling through history and around the globe.

By Maya Wei-Haas

Photo gallery by Nicole Werbeck

PUBLISHED JULY 04, 2015

Professional cyclists from all over the world hit the starting line this Saturday in the first stage of the unrelenting, three-week-long Tour de France. Starting in Utrecht, Netherlands, the epic course will cover a total of 3,360 kilometers (about 2088 miles), raced in 21 daily doses called stages, through gusting winds, up steep mountains, and at breakneck speeds down harrowing hairpin turns.

This year marks the 102nd tour held since the inaugural 1903 race. In the pre-Spandex era of the Tour’s early days, bike frames were made of heavy steel, and riders handled their own repairs, carrying extra tubes and tires wrapped around their shoulders and waists.

Historically, bicycles have served many roles—from military transportation to an emblem of the women's rights movement in the United States.

And they come in all shapes and sizes—from steel-framed work-horses to featherweight carbon fiber racing machines.

Cycling "is part of the childhood ritual" says Kate Powlison, a spokesperson at peopleforbikes, which promotes the development of a nationwide cycling community. ”Even if people get older and stop riding, that nostalgia for the freedom of riding is something you don't forget."

You can find the pictures on HERE!

28 Awe Inspiring Photos That Prove Just How Cool Mother Nature Is

Exocoetidae (Flying Fish)
Flying fish can make powerful, self-propelled leaps out of water into air, where their long, wing-like fins enable gliding flight for considerable distances above the water’s surface. This uncommon ability is a natural defense mechanism to evade predators.



Albino Humpback whale
Migaloo is an albino humpback whale that travels up and down the east coast of Australia and became famous in the local media on account of its extremely rare, all-white appearance. Migaloo is the only known all-white humpback whale.



Bismuth Crystals
Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a pentavalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead. It is a brittle metal with a silvery white color when freshly produced, but is often seen in air with a pink tinge owing to surface oxidation.



Tasmanian Giant Crab (Pseudocarcinus Gigas)
– AKA “Giant Deepwater Crab” – One of the largest crabs in the world. – Weighs a mighty 29lb with a 15-inch shell. – It has a white shell with claws that are splashed in red.



Koroit Opal
Koroit Opal – Found In Australia, South West Queensland..



Kangaroo joey inside the pouch
FYI : Female kangaroos can determine the sex of their offspring. They can even delay gestation when environmental factors are likely to diminish the chance of young surviving.



Coolest Teeth Ever!
Crabeater Seal Teeth…



The Angel Of Death
Few seconds after the attack, the Owl left this AWESOME imprint on the snow.



Meteorite..
From a Violent Collision Comes Celestial Beauty – Amber inclusions of olivine in meteorite..



Jaguar Attacks Crocodile
Jaguar submerges itself in muddy river before it leaps out and pounces on eight-foot reptile then bites its neck and carries it away ‘like a doggie bone’. An amazing example of evolution, Jaguars have learned how to deal with Crocodiles with just a single bite!



Common Gliding Lizard (Draco Sumatranus)
“A lizard with elongated ribs and skin flaps on the sides of its body. When opened, these skin flaps allow it to glide between tree trunks. It is primarily a tree dweller, except that the females come down to the forest floor to lay eggs. The body length is of about 9 cm, with a slightly longer tail. The body is of a dark grey/brown colouration with stripes and patterns to help it camouflage against the tree trunks.”



Awesome shell dude!
Priotrochatella (Cuban Land Snail)



Human Blood Vessels
(Arteries of the Hand & the Lower Limb) Shanghai Science & Technology Museum, China



Purple Corn
A variety of zea mays, is a corn grown in the Andes region of South America. It is common in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru. The kernels of Purple Corn have long been used by the people of the Andes to color foods and beverages, a practice just beginning to become popularized in the industrialized world. Besides its use as food and dye, purple corn is thought to have many health benefits.



Butterfly-fish (Dactylopteridae)
A flying gurnard (Dactylopterus volitans) in the Mediterranean east of Crete, Greece.



Underneath Waves
A stunning picture of waves crashing from underneath captured by photographer Mark Tipple on the Cook Islands, South Pacific Ocean.



Life Within Death
Physalis alkekengi, or the Chinese/Japanese Lantern, blooms during Winter and dries during Spring. Once it is dried, the bright red fruit is seen. The outer cover is a thin mesh that held the flower petals, seen in golden brown colour.



The Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus Titanum)
At 2.27 metres (7ft 5in) high, the Amorphophallus titanum is considered the largest flower in the world. Yup! It smells terrible..



Amazingly Beautiful Campo, Colorado
Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (177 km/h), are about 250 feet (76 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before dissipating.



The Glowing Forest, Shikoku, Japan
This forest glows in the dark thanks to a bunch of Luminescent Mushrooms. Mushrooms and fallen leaves emit a magical light for just a short period of time each year.



Opal
Koroit Boulder Opal…. Beautiful Patterns!



Katydid Nymph (Pseudophyllinae, Cymatomerini, Olcinia)
Insects in the family Tettigoniidae are commonly called katydids or bush-crickets. There are more than 6,400 species. Part of the suborder Ensifera, it is the only family in the superfamily Tettigonioidea. They are also known as long-horned grasshoppers, although they are more closely related to crickets and weta than to any type of grasshopper. Many tettigoniids exhibit mimicry and camouflage, commonly with shapes and colors similar to leaves.



The Dragon’s Skull
This weird little plant is called a Snapdragon or Dragon flower or, if you want to sound even smarter, The Antirrhinum. Once the flower has died, the seed pod begins to look like the skulls you see here. Apart from being creepy as hell and alleged protectors of the garden, if you wore this about your body you would appear to be more “fascinating and gracious”. Though I imagine if anyone actually did find this on you, fascinating and gracious are not the only things they will think about you.



Rains As Seen From An Airplane
Rain drops can fall at speeds of about 22 miles an hour. To take this into perspective, a snowflake falls at about 2-4 mph can take about 1 hour to finally reach the ground.



Unusual Colours
Red Bananas. Purple Carrots. Purple Corn.



Awesome!
Astronaut Karen Nyberg tweeted a photo of the Seven Sisters (Pleiades) overlooking Reunion and Mauritius islands in the Indian Ocean, taken aboard the International Space Station. Photo dated August 25, 2013.



Aurora…
Aurora Zipper, Yellowknife



Flying Fish (Parexocoetus Brachypterus)
Exocoetidae is a family of marine fish in the order Beloniformes of class Actinopterygii. Fish of this family are known as flying fish. There are about sixty-four species grouped in seven to nine genera. Flying fish can make powerful, self-propelled leaps out of water into air, where their long, wing-like fins enable gliding flight for considerable distances above the water’s surface. This uncommon ability is a natural defense mechanism to evade predators.