30 years old Asian sheepshead wrasse owed residuals from Shrek

This video right & credit belongs to TodayShow.com (WYFF)

And you thought Shrek liked hanging out only in his swamp.
Turns out there's a fish that greatly resembles the green ogre swimming off the coast of Japan.

A buzzy video shot by a scuba diver made its way to WYFF the NBC television affiliate based in Greenville, South Carolina.
The station explains that this particular fish is an Asian Sheepshead Wrasse, and it is relatively common.

What's less common is that this particular fish, estimated to be about 30 years old, bears a startling resemblance to the grouchy ogre. The head, the chin, the beady eyes — it's all there.

The bulgyhead wrasse, an odd-looking, meter-long fish with bulbous head that is found in waters off Sado Island in northern Japan, was featured in the film "Oceans".
A big rock is sinking deeply under the sea and it is called the Red Rock.
Several fishes live there and nobody attempt to catch them; then they are not afraid of human, and never run away.
They eat shellfishes, have strong teeth and grow big.

The bulgyhead wrasse species, or kobudai in Japanese, is affectionately known to local divers as the benkei fish because its head resembles a lump said to have been on the forehead of the legendary warrior monk Musashibo Benkei of the Heian period (794-1192).

Links :

• other videos : bulgyhead wrasse living in Sadogashima ( I / II / III)
  

Worlds upon worlds : about the Waldseemüller world map

The mother of all modern world maps

From Google Tech Talk

Toby Lester -- a longtime editor and writer for The Atlantic, and the author of The Fourth Part of the World (2009) -- will be here to talk about what may well be the greatest map ever made: the Waldseemüller world map of 1507.

A giant wall map recently purchased by the Library of Congress for the astonishing sum of $10 million, the map's main claim to fame is that it gave America its name.

But the map also represents a number of other important firsts in the history of cartography, and in the larger history of ideas.

It was the first map to show the New World surrounded by water, and thus to suggest the existence of the Pacific Ocean; it was one of the very first maps to lay out a picture of the world in a full 360 degrees of longitude; and it was the first map to present the contours of the world's continents and oceans largely as we know them today.
It was, in many ways, the mother of all modern world maps -- and yet, mysteriously, it was made years before Europeans first saw the Pacific or circumnavigated the globe.

With the help of a weird and wonderful variety of early maps and diagrams, Lester will show how the Waldseemüller map for the first time brought together elements of many different ancient and medieval cartographic traditions and used them to create a map not only of space but also time.

A map that Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, after reading about it in The Fourth Part of the World, described as :
"The right technology at the right time can change the world. Toby Lester has written a page-turning story of the creation of what amounts to a sixteenth-century Google Earth, a revolutionary way to see the world. It inspired generations of explorers then and will inspire readers now."

Links :

• WashingtonPost : 16th-Century mapmaker's intriguing knowledge
• Boston.com : A world redrawn, when America showed up on a map, it was the universe that got transformed
  
• The Naming of America: Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 World Map and the Cosmographiae Introductio by John W. Hessler

Ellen MacArthur launches her next global challenge

From BBCNews

Yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur has set herself a new long-distance challenge - creating an educational foundation to promote sustainability.
Now retired from racing yachts, she has committed herself to changing attitudes towards the planet's finite natural resources.
She wants to persuade young people and businesses to re-think how they use and design products.

"The foundation will be a catalyst for change," she says.

Speaking in London ahead of the launch of the project, Dame Ellen says that this vision of a more sustainable economy has replaced her consuming passion for sailing.

Diminishing supplies

"Five years ago I would never have dreamt I'd be doing this," she says. "But it's become the most exciting thing I've ever done - and I never thought I could say that about anything other than sailing."

The inspiration for this sustainable way of living came from her experience of long-distance voyages, she says.

"When I was at sea I managed whatever I had incredibly carefully, so I never left a computer screen on, never left a light on, I was careful with food, because you know that is all you have."
"What you have on board is finite. If you drop the only screwdriver over the side, it's gone forever. There is no more. You have to live in a very different way."

It started to make her think of the world as being like a boat stowed with finite supplies - except that unlike the frugal long-distance sailor, as a society we were tearing through what was left of the oil, gas and coal.

When she began examining the alarming rate at which resources were being used - she found herself wanting to do something about it.
"I'd come across something. From the moment I discovered it, it was as if I'd picked up a stone that I couldn't put down again."

The foundation will promote ideas for businesses, schools and universities which will encourage people to re-think how the earth's resources are being used.
This isn't a moral message, she says, but a practical one - a form of enlightened self-interest.

Cutting waste

The increasing expense of raw materials is going to drive the development of more efficient ways of working, she says - and she wants her foundation to encourage young people to develop such changes.

Products and services will have to be designed to minimize waste - and she says jobs will be created to serve this new economy.
She says the point is not to urge people to consume less, but to make sure that products are made from materials that can be re-used.
Anything from carpets to washing machines to cars should be re-designed in a way that means that nothing ends up taking the one-way trip to the landfill.

"It's about designing things so that the materials used for a shirt can be re-used for another shirt or turned into a pair of trousers. It's not about using less and less. It's about finding a cycle that works."

But a word she doesn't use is "green". And she admits to having difficulty with the terminology of environmentalism, aware that the language of the eco-warriors can have a negative effect.
"What does 'green' mean? It's not about 'green' or 'the environment'. You could argue it's about how we maintain a good quality of life. It's about how we're going to prosper in the future, when we're so dependent on something that won't be around forever."

Even the word "sustainability" is less than compelling, she suggests - saying that you wouldn't want to describe a relationship with someone as "sustainable".

Herculean challenge

But there is no doubting the seriousness of her intention - applying the dedication of the long-distance yachtswoman to the long haul of promoting her arguments.
There are links being set up with universities, partnerships with businesses and talks with educational organizations.
The foundation also provides another horizon for someone who achieved their lifetime's ambition at an early age.

After setting a world record for a single-handed circumnavigation of the globe at the age of 24 - and becoming the country's youngest dame - she was left with the "What now?" moment.
"Round the world had been my goal - and the moment I'd got there, it wasn't there any more, I'd done it."

Dame Ellen is now recycling her own energies into launching the sustainability foundation - and says she is optimistic about a positive result.
"This is an inspirational message, an aspiration - but getting there will be the most herculean challenge we've ever faced."

Links :

• Scotsman : Ellen MacArthur interview : voyage of self discovery

Animals point to ancient seaway in Antarctica

Scientists dive below Antarctic Ice Sheet to survey marine creatures

From BBCNews

Scientists have found evidence for an ancient sea passage linking currently isolated areas of Antarctica.

The evidence comes from a study of tiny marine animals living either side of the 2km thick Western Antarctic ice sheet.
Reseachers think their spread was due to the collapse of the ice sheet as recently as 125,000 years ago allowing water flow between different regions.
Their findings are published in the journal, Global Change Biology.

Bryozoans are tiny, filter feeding marine animals which in their adult form are immobile, living glued to the sides of boulders, rocks or other surfaces.

As part of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life scientists from the British Antarctic Survey have revealed striking similarities between the Bryozoans living in the Ross and Weddell seas.
These are 1,500 miles apart and separated by the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), the third largest ice mass on the planet.

Antarctica once looked very different: a sea passage linked currently isolated areas

The finding led the scientists to conclude that these marine animals could only have spread across both seas if there had been a partial collapse of the WAIS opening up a trans Antarctic seaway. They believe this could have been as recently as 125,000 years ago.

It would only take a partial collapse to have a huge impact on sea levels raising them by as much as five metres globally.

While there is some geological evidence for the collapse of the WAIS at least once in the last million years, the data has been limited. Dr David Barnes, from the British Antarctic Survey is the lead author of the survey.

'Smoking Gun'
"There was no real smoking gun saying yes it's happened recently. This is the first time there's hard direct evidence that there has been a collapse," he told BBC News.

"For us that is a big deal. That would make the WAIS the least stable of the three ice masses and so that would mean that we could expect more sea level rise than we might have bargained for."

Because Bryozoans are abundant, fossilise easily and exist in many different, but highly localised forms, they are very useful for scientists trying to understand the connections between places.

"What we've got is this group of animals that don't disperse very well because the adults don't move at all and the larvae are short-lived and sink so they find it difficult to get around," said Dr Barnes.

"So you're left with this nice signal of where things used to be connected, and in this case it appears to be a connection between what is now an ice sheet."

He told the BBC he thinks the opening up of the seaway and the sea level rise that goes with it could have been relatively recent.

"It has to be recent because otherwise we would have lost the signal of connectivity... each ice age would have bulldozed out most of the animals living on the continental shelf. It's asking a lot to maintain a strong signal over multiple ice ages. "

The findings are a critical in understanding the future stability of the Western Antarctic Ice sheet and how ice sheets behave in different climate scenarios.
Scientists believe a future collapse of the WAIS would raise sea levels globally by 3.3m - 5m.

Links :

• Wired : Sea creatures hint at recent trans-Antarctic seaway
  

Why fish in the Arctic don’t freeze

Antarctic or Arctic fish : fresh, not frozen
These fish can survive in the coldest marine environment on the planet

From Wired

Scientists studying why fish in the Arctic ocean don’t freeze have discovered how a natural antifreeze that keeps blood flowing at sub-zero temperatures works.

The temperature of the water in the Arctic is a fairly constant 28.6 degrees Fahrenheit year-round, close to the freezing point of seawater.
The freezing point of fish blood, however, is about 30.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
You’d expect fish traveling beyond a certain latitude to ice up.

Instead, fish are able to keep moving thanks to a frost-protection protein in their blood. It was discovered about 50 years ago, but only now are scientists discovering how the protein works.

Researchers led by Bochum University chemist Martina Havenith used terahertz spectroscopy to examine water molecules in the presence of the protein.
They saw that water molecules, which normally dance around, forming and breaking bonds, slow down in the protein’s vicinity.

“The disco dance becomes a minuet,” said Havenith.

The slowing of the bond-forming process prevents ice crystallization, which would be fatal for the fish.
Under extremely low temperatures the fish can still freeze, but by that point the water around it will have frozen solid too.

The research was funded by Volkswagen, who no doubt want to find better ways of anti-freezing their cars.
The natural proteins found in the fish perform far better than man-made antifreezes, which bond directly with water molecules to lower the freezing point.
The proteins don’t need to bond. Their mere presence is enough to slow freezing.

Links :

• JBC (1978) : Antifreeze glycoproteins from Arctic Fish