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Man, these things just keep getting more and more gigantic: Fishermen off the coast of New Zealand were out catching patagonian toothfish when they snared Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni — a colossal squid, the 747 of the briny deep. At 990 pounds and 39 feet long, it’s 50% larger than the next biggest specimen ever caught; and since colossal squid are assumed to grow to a maximum of 46 feet, it’s pretty close to being the biggest one you could catch.
Though who knows? The 46-foot estimate is based on studying the occasional colossal-squid corpse accidentally caught in nets or washed up on shores, so maybe these majestic beasts grow larger yet. At which point it makes you wonder, to what increasingly florid adjectives might we one day be forced to resort? What comes after “giant squid” and “colossal squid”, anyway? “Ginormous squid”? “Just-totally-way-huge squid”? My favorite quote from an Associated Press article on the catch:
“I can assure you that this is going to draw phenomenal interest. It is truly amazing,” said Dr. Steve O’Shea, a squid expert at the Auckland University of Technology. If calamari rings were made from the squid they would be the size of tractor tires, he added.
Nice. Mind you, given that the flesh of colossal squid are deeply infused with ammonia — to make them neutrally bouyant, neither rising nor falling in the water — that would be some rather nasty-tasting hors d’ouerves.
(Thanks to Frances, Joseph and Will for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
A long German word for “noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history”
“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912
“How did you find my site?” and Vannevar Bush’s memex
» visit the Collision Detection archives
May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM
From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.
July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S
July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM
My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.
June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM
On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.
June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM
I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives.
According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable!
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