GIANT - AND I MEAN GIANT! SQUID WASHES ASHORE IN SPAIN

NATURE WORLD NEWS : GIANT SQUID WASHES ASHORE IN SPAIN

The specimen is more than 10 meters long and weighs some 180 kilos.

It has since been moved to the Maritime Museum of Cantabria in the port city of Santander where technicians are focused on conserving the animal..

 

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This is like something you might have read about in a Jules Verne book.

SIREN WELCOMES NEW READERS TO THIS BLOG

I recently added a TRANSLATOR as well as a just click link so that readers who are coming to SIRENS LINK TO SEA from older posts can easily get to the latest newer posts and read from the top.  I always hope that my blog will interest you and keep you informed on ocean ecology!

FOUR MILE WIDE VOLCANO UNDER THE PACIFIC IS THE BIGGEST VOLCANO IN THE WORLD

TAMU MASSIF - HUFFINGTON POST  link to full article

"The entire volcano is bigger than the British Isles or New Mexico.

Despite Tamu's huge size, the ship surveys showed little evidence the volcano's top ever poked above the sea. The world's biggest volcano has been hidden because it sits on thin oceanic crust (or lithosphere), which can't support its weight. Its top is about 6,500 feet (1,980 meters) below the ocean surface today"

DIANA NYAD SWIMS FROM CUBA TO FLORIDA - A FIFTH TRY FOR THIS COURAGEOUS ATHLETE!

A THIRD TRY FOR THIS COURAGEOUS ATHLETE! She tried four times before, twice in the last year or so, before and had to stop - mostly due to jelly fish stings. Here's video of Diana's arrival in Key West yesterday September 2, 2013 at 153pm, after swimming 52 Hours 54 Minutes 18.6 Seconds and 110.4 statue miles. DIANA's OWN WEB SITE!

Diana tried four other times... it was jelly fish stings that stopped her. She swam without a shark cage, without flippers, through the nights, and this time with a special jelly fish sting remedy. She is the first person to do this swim and she's 64 years old. She says we are never too old to give up on our dreams. CONGRADULATIONS!
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WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT PLASTIC POLLUTION! AND ALL THAT OTHER STUFF!

I've read some articles and heard some radio broadcasts that say that drinking from plastic bottles or eating food from plastic containers (especially plastic film wrap and microwaving) result in PLASTIC IN OUR BODIES.  Fish are found with plastic in theirs.  It may be what's killing them.

So what are the things we can do NOW to cut the plastic pollution?

Number one is RECYCLING - putting plastics together to be sold for reuse or at least dumped together.  When I walk my dog, and I'm already stooping to pick up his poo, and I see bottles and cans laying around, I pick them up too.  Recycling puts some money in your pocket.

DON'T BUY DRINKS IN PLASTIC CONTAINERS - aluminum is better!  But think past the bottles to the big drinks that come in huge plastic containers and all those straws and lids.
If eating in a fast food restaurant you can drink without the straws and lids.  See if you can reuse a container many times or bring your own! 

BEWARE!  You should not leave plastic bottles in cars or windows or sunlight - the plastic starts leaching into the drink faster.

BUYING WATER?  GET A WASHABLE GLASS GALLON JUG instead of using the plastic.

DISHWASHING does use suds and water, but is probably more ecologically correct than landfills of plastic and seas of plastic.

BUY THINGS THAT BIODEGRADE faster such as shoes made of fabric or leather rather than plastic or vinyl. Same thing about purses and bags.

YES, reuse what you have.  You don't have to be a total cheapskate and use a bag till it falls apart but how about using it 3 times before you throw it away?

BUY BIODEGRADEABLE dog poopie bags and trash bags.

Don't throw clothes out in the trash.  Chop up the bad stuff to be used as rags, give the rest to charity for another go around.  (Cut off the buttons and reuse them!)

Save the plastic you bring home and give it to a school to be used for art projects.

TAKE YOUR ELECTRONICS to special recycling events or call your city trash pick up for those TV's and appliances.  Batteries?  Many libraries have used battery drop offs.

Lunch bags of paper or old fashioned metal lunch boxes!

Make your own GIFT WRAP or gently reuse the paper that you removed from your presents.  Also bows, etc.

Store leftovers and opened food in glass containers with lids in the fridge.

KID ORAGAMI FROM DOVER : SQUID

JERRY HALL BREAKS RECORD -DIVER UNDER WATER SIX DAYS

WCYP : RECORDBREAKER DIVER JERRY HALL article by By Meredith Machen

 
Excerpt: For the third time in his life, Hall holds the world record for longest freshwater scuba dive. Now it will take more than 145 hours and 31 minutes to beat him.
Though his hands and feet are shriveled, Hall said he's feeling great.
The diver told us one of the hardest parts about this dive was the temperature. "I was really cold. I just told the guys, [and] they worked the problem out [and] fixed it. They got me back to being semi-warm. I'm just now starting to warm up," Hall said shortly after he surfaced.

COELACANTH GENOME SEQUENCED :

BBC NEWS : LIVING FOSSIL FISH GENOME SEQUENCED - COELACANTH link to article by Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter, BBC World Service

 
"Researchers sequenced the genome of the coelacanth: a deep-sea fish that closely resembles its ancestors, which lived at least 300 million years ago....It had been suggested that this fish was closely related to early tetrapods - the first creatures to drag themselves out of the ocean, giving rise to life on land."

SEA MONSTER CARCASS PROVES TO BE WHALE

DISCOVERY COM - SEA MONSTER IS WHALE
link
A marine biologist soon identified the remains as a killer whale, in part because of its distinctive flipper. The mystery was solved, but it’s not the first time an animal’s carcass has been mistaken for a monster. In fact, New Zealand is one of the most common places in the world — along with Newfoundland, Canada and Florida — for such “sea monsters” to appear. THIS LINK HAS OTHER LINKS TO LEAD YOU TO SEA MONSTER AND BLOB INFO!

THE PLASTIPHERE : ARE THE MICROBES EATING THE PLASTIC? IS THERE DISEASE?

ACS -PLASTIPHERE - A NEW MARINE ECOLOGY COMMUNITY.

"The masses of plastic debris that float over large areas of the world's oceans have become new ecological communities that scientists have named the "Plastisphere." Their report in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology suggests that these novel habitats in the North Atlantic Ocean may harbor potential disease-causing microbes. Erik Zettler of the Sea Education Association, Tracy Mincer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Linda Amaral-Zettler of the Marine Biological Laboratory explain that plastic has become the No. 1 form of ocean debris, causing serious concerns about its impact on the health of ocean communities."

ORAGAMI FROM DOVER : CLAM SHELLS

ORCA WHALE WITH PLASTIC BAG IN MOUTH : OUR OCEAN ECOLOGY

LIVE SCIENCE : ORCA WITH PLASTIC BAG IN MOUTH ARTICLE

LIVE SCIENCE : ORCA SPOTTED WITH PLASTIC BAG IN MOUTH .

MY CONCERNS OVER PLASTIC POLLUTION GROW... link here! .

One group of researchers recently published a database of trash on the seafloor from California to Canada and offshore of Hawaii. They found that most garbage in their count was plastic, and of those items, more than half were plastic bags, some choking corals nearly 7,000 feet (2,115 meters) below.