Saturday, January 19, 2008

Scramblers in the Shallows, Light in the Deeps

This is a short, stunning clip that starts with deep-sea glowsticks and segues to shallow-water cephalopods. The first part gives you a taste of Beebe Station; the second (including the Two-Faced Squid!) demonstrates some camo tricks that make scramblers look like amateurs.

No new information here, but beautiful. Try to ignore the creationist idiot in the comments.

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16 Comments:

Blogger LoopdiLou said...

That was absolutely stunning.

January 19, 2008 2:00 AM  
Anonymous rakiah said...

That was way cool.

But something creeps me out about TED in general.

A yearly ruling class circle jerk about the wondrous humanitarian market utopia to come (cum).

January 19, 2008 2:32 AM  
Blogger Poison said...

Humans are so embarrassingly underveolved, it's a wonder we got to where we are. Fuck opposable thumbs, I want to be an octopus and have superpowers.

January 19, 2008 9:37 AM  
Blogger Suzenym said...

Wow! That was so amazing it left me breathless. Thanks for sharing it, Peter.

January 20, 2008 2:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK, Mr.Watts. I give up. Before I submit the first part of "Blindsight" Russian translation to editor, please, tell - WHAT THE HELL IS AN I-CANN FREIGTER?!

Best rgds,
Daniel Smushkovich

January 20, 2008 2:58 PM  
Anonymous Nicholas said...

ah, biological light production. And elegant testament to how selection is infinitely better and design than we humans are. Hundreds of times more efficient, it makes our means of producing light look like something a dumbass protohuman carved out of flint with another piece of flint, so wasteful it's essentially a partner in crime with entropy.

Few things are more beautiful.

January 21, 2008 7:35 AM  
Blogger AR said...

ah, biological light production. And elegant testament to how selection is infinitely better and design than we humans are. Hundreds of times more efficient, it makes our means of producing light look like something a dumbass protohuman carved out of flint with another piece of flint, so wasteful it's essentially a partner in crime with entropy.

That's only because natural selection had a few billion years head start. By the looks of things, we could be caught up within the next 100 years.

January 21, 2008 11:27 AM  
Blogger sardonyx said...

Dammit, that was cool! Thanks for linking that :) I loved the sea turkey best!!

January 21, 2008 4:46 PM  
Blogger Mac said...

The star of the show was clearly the octopus at the end. Wow.

January 22, 2008 2:07 AM  
Blogger Peter Watts said...

rakiah said...

But something creeps me out about TED in general. A yearly ruling class circle jerk about the wondrous humanitarian market utopia to come (cum).

I don't know anything about those guys. The BMW ads struck as a bit smarmy, for sure — but then, even staid old Nature produces poidcasts with jazzy musical jingles and BioRad ads.

I just picked up the link from some biology blog...

January 22, 2008 8:59 PM  
Blogger Peter Watts said...

sardonyx said...

Something about turkeys, but I just wanted to note that she's got a pretty hot user pic.

January 22, 2008 9:02 PM  
Blogger Peter Watts said...

Daniel Smushkovich said...

OK, Mr.Watts. I give up. Before I submit the first part of "Blindsight" Russian translation to editor, please, tell - WHAT THE HELL IS AN I-CANN FREIGTER?!

"I-CAN freighter". Only one "N". (It's spelled right in the book; are you working from a digital file or something?) Anyway, I-CAN is an antimatter propulsion system out of Penn State. Details here, and here, and here.

But a blog comments section isn't the best way to get ahold of me for editing issues. It would probably be faster to send me an e-mail.

January 22, 2008 9:36 PM  
Anonymous Mondo said...

Haha. I was thinking no way is a translator posting an anonymous comment to an author's blog bemoaning the difficulty involved in translating the author's book.

Unexpected entertainment.

January 23, 2008 6:37 AM  
Blogger Jeremy Ruhland said...

Happy Trieste Day everyone!

January 23, 2008 9:48 AM  
Blogger Peter Watts said...

Yes, Happy Trieste Day! I myself have a very soft spot for bathyscaphes. I even tried to build one when I was nine.

Gross scaphian morphology here.

January 23, 2008 9:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

>It's spelled right in the book; are you working from a digital file or something?
Yes. In the file it's spelled right once, and wrong - once. Trust me to choose wrong.
Thank you very much; that was the one and only riddle from "Theseus" I could not crack on my own.

Best rgds,
Daniel Smushkovich

January 27, 2008 5:08 PM  

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