Blobology
Today's New York Times has a great story about "blobologists" -- marine scientists who study the enormous blobs of mysterious flesh that occasionally wash ashore. (Giant-squid aficionados may recall the one that floated up in Chile last year.) Historically, the blobs have caused plenty of florid mythmaking about the Kraken and whatnot, but as you might imagine, when the scientists study the flesh, they usually find it's not so mysterious after all: Old whale blubber, usually. But what's particularly hilarious is the reaction of the scientists themselves to these findings. The Times quotes the report from the guys who analyzed last year's Chilean blob:
"To our disappointment," the scientists wrote last month in The Biological Bulletin, "we have not found any evidence that any of the blobs are the remains of gigantic octopods, or sea monsters of unknown species."
And back in the 90s, some other scientists studied age-old chunks of a mystery blob from 1869. Their conclusion?
"With profound sadness at ruining a favorite legend," they wrote in the April 1995 issue of The Biological Bulletin, published by the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., a distinguished research institution, "we find no basis for the existence of Octopus giganteus."
I love it. The scientists are themselves so swept up in the blob mystery that they feel the need to apologize for debunking it. But really, who can blame them? Being a marine scientist is probably the single strangest job on the planet. The vast majority of the ocean is completely unexplored, we've never seen a giant squid live, and the biodiversity of the briny deep outstrips the Amazon by probably an order of magnitude. Hell, for all we know, there are bioluminescent aquatic chupacabras crossbreeding with half-ton sea monkeys down there somewhere. The next mystery blob really could turn out to be a new life form. Marine biologists, more than any other variant of scientist, get out of bed each morning with the possibility of discovering the most impossibly weird shit imaginable.
And by the way, isn't "blobology" the finest word in the English language?
Posted by Clive Thompson at July 27, 2004 01:38 PM
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The science of blobs. I love it.
Marine biology was the only science course I ever took that I was any good at.
Posted by: june at July 27, 2004 3:32 PM
Posted by: Clive at July 27, 2004 4:12 PM
Posted by: brian corcoran at July 27, 2004 4:20 PM
Yes, I'd read about that scientist profiled in the New Yorker a few months ago when I read Richard Ellis' superb book on the giant squid. Apparently, the problem with eating giant squid is that their flesh is infused with ammonia to make the squid "neutrally bouyant" -- it will just hang in the water, neither rising nor falling, unless it actively moves somewhere. But the problem is the ammonia is really nasty-tasting.
Posted by: Clive at July 27, 2004 4:48 PM
TPrior art....the term blobology is a term of pride used by military imagery analysts interpreting radar imagery. Objects of interest often look like amorphous blobs to the unwashed in radar imagery, and the fine art of nterpreting these blobs is referred to as blobology
Posted by: dude at July 27, 2004 10:48 PM
Ahahhaha! Excellent. I didn't know that.
Posted by: Clive at July 27, 2004 11:04 PM
I now plan to retire young so I can pursue my interests in amateur blobology and giant squid hunting.
Posted by: Tony at July 28, 2004 6:56 AM
So that's why all these scientists have been staking out my house....
Posted by: George at July 28, 2004 9:16 PM
Posted by: Clive at July 28, 2004 9:44 PM
Octopus giganteus exists, I tell ye! I seen it with me own eyes. A fearsome beast, 'twas. Had me frozen up a spell, it did. Knew I was there, too, I reckon! Would've swallered me up, peg leg and all, if God Almighty hadn't put the fear of...well, God, into it. T'aint nuttin' more fearsome than God, y'know. But that there giganticus octopussius, came mighty close....
Posted by: Walter at July 29, 2004 2:10 AM
"The Kraken"
(a poem by Alfred Tennyson)
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber’d and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
(Of course, 120 years later John Wyndham gave us The Kraken Wakes, and all hell broke loose.)
Posted by: Clive at July 29, 2004 2:19 AM
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The science of blobs. I love it.
Marine biology was the only science course I ever took that I was any good at.
Posted by: june at July 27, 2004 3:32 PM
Rock!
Posted by: Clive at July 27, 2004 4:12 PM
Great article in the New Yorker recently on Giant Squids - http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact1.
Just one of those fat bastards would address my calamari needs for life, presuming I could find a deep fryer big enough...
-brian.
Posted by: brian corcoran at July 27, 2004 4:20 PM
Yes, I'd read about that scientist profiled in the New Yorker a few months ago when I read Richard Ellis' superb book on the giant squid. Apparently, the problem with eating giant squid is that their flesh is infused with ammonia to make the squid "neutrally bouyant" -- it will just hang in the water, neither rising nor falling, unless it actively moves somewhere. But the problem is the ammonia is really nasty-tasting.
Posted by: Clive at July 27, 2004 4:48 PM
TPrior art....the term blobology is a term of pride used by military imagery analysts interpreting radar imagery. Objects of interest often look like amorphous blobs to the unwashed in radar imagery, and the fine art of nterpreting these blobs is referred to as blobology
Posted by: dude at July 27, 2004 10:48 PM
Ahahhaha! Excellent. I didn't know that.
Posted by: Clive at July 27, 2004 11:04 PM
I now plan to retire young so I can pursue my interests in amateur blobology and giant squid hunting.
Posted by: Tony at July 28, 2004 6:56 AM
So that's why all these scientists have been staking out my house....
Posted by: George at July 28, 2004 9:16 PM
Heh.
Posted by: Clive at July 28, 2004 9:44 PM
Octopus giganteus exists, I tell ye! I seen it with me own eyes. A fearsome beast, 'twas. Had me frozen up a spell, it did. Knew I was there, too, I reckon! Would've swallered me up, peg leg and all, if God Almighty hadn't put the fear of...well, God, into it. T'aint nuttin' more fearsome than God, y'know. But that there giganticus octopussius, came mighty close....
Posted by: Walter at July 29, 2004 2:10 AM
"The Kraken"
(a poem by Alfred Tennyson)
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber’d and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
(Of course, 120 years later John Wyndham gave us The Kraken Wakes, and all hell broke loose.)
Posted by: Clive at July 29, 2004 2:19 AM