Under Water to get out of the Rain: concluding :Why oh why oh why did I not become a marine biologist?

It is such a cool thing to be. You get to scuba dive in varied locations collecting data; it involves looking at beautiful things in a beautiful environment, you design great experiments for changing ecosystems to see what works and what doesn't work, and you meet other people who love the same things as you!

It is all the fault of Miss Johns, who taught us Biology. She was a large, toothy woman who was quite diffident. She must have hated her ungrateful, giggling pupils, and she never showed us anything from the real world of nature. We copied the text book and diagrams on the board. I remember that ferns (or mosses) do something quite interesting in their life cycle and I hoped she would bring in an example of the thing that they became, but nope! I am still trying to become less ignorant. I collected my O Level.  But was that education? I believe children are taught better now, that there is some connection between the student and the life form studied.

History was taught and tested in the same way. You learned a story and you wrote it out in grammatically correct sentences. No wonder I preferred English Lit. You actually dealt with the book which contained its own world. It was not a step away from the actual subject under investigation.

My father was a keen gardener and I liked being in the garden with him. I was very fond of worms and used to collect them while he was digging. He told me how important the worms were for the soil. He was also keen on making compost heaps and enjoyed seeing them break down into compost as much as he enjoyed seeing the plants grow. (I am a bit like that now) One day I inspected the roses and I pointed out to him that some were covered with blackfly. I asked him if there was some kind of poison for the blackfly to get rid of them. "Yes," he said. "They tried that. They got some DDT and sprayed it and killed all the pests." "So that's a good idea then?" "Well. Then the birds started to die..." He didn't need to say any more. He had just explained ecology in 2 sentences.

But back to marine biology:" Under Water to get out of the Rain" includes so many interesting stories about things like, why did the Californian giant kelp forests start to diminish? they are vital to the food industry. Who was put on the case and what experiments did he do to solve the puzzle?

What happened to Cannery Row? Who was "Doc" the marine biologist that John Steinbeck wrote about? Now I know the answers I have to read "Cannery Row" again.(What an unlikely place for literature - a row of smelly factories for fish processing.)

I picked up this book by serendipity - my friend Amanda asked us round for a Christmas quiz and gave me this book to rest my answer paper on. I flicked through and I was intrigued. It's a terrific read, and unlike our  bad role-model Professor Steve Jones, Professor Trevor Norton lists at the end all the books he has consulted : A long, long list, and credits everyone, especially those who died at sea.

Someone has made fake London Underground signs, and whoever did it is a ruddy genius.

Someone has made fake London Underground signs, and whoever did it is a ruddy genius.

Under Water to get out of the Rain - Part 5 - 2 strange plants

This probably isn't at all interesting to most people, but I found it very interesting. Here is Trevor on an island called Graciosa:

There are other sand binders such as Caulerpas, seaweeds that resemble green leaves, fern fronds or clusters of tiny grapes. They arise from creeping runners, much as strawberry plants do, and the underground cobweb of runners keeps the sand in place. Unlike all the other plants and animals, which are built of millions of tiny cells each independently controlled by its own nucleus, Caulerpa shuns compartmentalisation in favour of tubular construction. No matter how many metres its runners spread, or how numerous its upright fronds, the entire plant is a continuous hollow tube without interruption. As it doesn't waste energy manufacturing cross walls, the tube can extend at a phenomenal rate. Floating in the film of protoplasm that lines the inside of the tube are billions of nuclei, although how these coordinate its activities is hard to imagine. Caulerpa's non-cellular success shows that there is another way to construct living things that works. Surprising then that few other organisms have followed suit.

Caulerpa racemosa

caulerpa taxifolia

I read something more on the internet about these plants (alga) and it turns out that they are not usually admired because they are terribly invasive, and 9 types of them are banned in California. Few fish can eat them so they ruin the local fishery. The fish that do eat them become not suitable for human consumption: it turns out that they become hallucinogenic. So although interesting they are also quite creepy.

On with Trevor Norton:

My favourite plant from these submerged sands was Acetabularia, a formidable name for such a delicate plant. Imagine a tiny parasol perched on a thin stalk, the whole thing apparently made from pale green chalk and resembling a beautifully stylised daisy carved by a Japanese craftsman. Yet it is merely a relative of Caulerpa reinforced with calcium - a common ploy to make it less appetising to grazers. [??? I thought they didn't like it.] It also has an internal surprise. Whereas Caulerpa has a superabundance of nuclei, Acetabularia has only a single mega- nucleus at it base, which manages to supervise the growth, development and daily activities of the 'root', stem and umbrella of one of the prettiest things in the sea. 

More information about what it can do

Under water to get out of the Rain - Part 4 - strange animal

Trevor Norton went caving in a tidal pool in Lanzarote.

I stripped off and walked into the water with reverence. The bottom was a tumble of boulders. From a thousand crevices long glaucous ribbons protruded. When I tried to touch them, they shot back into their hole with the sudden recoil of stretched elastic. What on earth were they?

I sneaked up on one and chopped with my diving knife before it vanished into its lair. The detached ribbon stayed alive for hours rhythmically extending and contracting. It was soft and frilled and had a groove all down one edge, and the tip was forked. It was distinctive, but was it a worm or what? As I stared, it contracted into a question mark.

I was not the first person to be puzzled by this creature. Long before, a biologist had examined such a piece and described it as a new species. What neither of us knew was that there was another bit. Hidden in the crevice sat the fat green plum of its body. The thin gelatinous concertina that I had captured was just its proboscis searching for food. It is called Bonellia and belongs to an obscure group I had never heard of.

Usually just the tube is visible.

 The plum is the female and she is seventy times bigger than the male, a tiny parasite that lives quietly among her folds. The larva is of undecided sexuality. If it encounters a female, it becomes a male and slips into the groove in her proboscis. In the absence of female company the larva becomes a female and waits for a male.

Under water to get out of the Rain part 3 - Fishing for Octopus

did 4 lesson plans today and I am now confused as to which class is going to learn what and which books are involved. So back to reading for light relief.

The octopus has a flair for inciting repugnance. It changes its texture and colour to impersonate boulders or weed or a slither of slime without substance. Even slime doesn't take this as a compliment. ... Quick as a whip, its arm embraced me, then another and yet more. they could do eight unpleasant things at one. Pulling them off felt as if they were taking my flesh with them.

The octopus is an Einstein among invertebrates. Even hardened researchers recount that they are quick to learn, they come to be fed and their gaze follows you around the room. At least, one of their eyes does because some are right-eyed, others left-eyed. The structure of the octopus eye is almost exactly the same as ours and it is difficult to gaze into it without thinking that a human being is trapped inside. It has the look of sad acceptance of someone transformed into a bag of jelly by witchery and condemned to unhappy octopusdom for ever. 

..He inserted the wire into its mouth and out through the top of its head. It stared at me in sad surprise, as if asking what was I going to do about it. Eventually, seven or eight were skewered on the wire, stacked one about the other, still half alive and pathetically waving goodbye.

This is another creature: the mimic octopus, which I found just now on YouTube. I had never heard of it before; it is very gifted and talented.

The weather in the suburbs

It is far too warm for winter (I still have Sweet Williams in flower and a patch of agapanthus hasn't died back) and we have had a really amazing amount of rain.

One of my students works for the Council in Guildford and he has had a terrible time with the flooding. Residents phone him to tell him (crying, screaming, swearing) how desperate they are that their homes have been flooded. He has been getting 3 hrs sleep a night and went to help physically clear up homes at the weekend. He can't see any end to the wet weather, unless it snows and becomes icy, which will be worse.

Under Water to get Out of the Rain- Trevor Norton part 2 - the Sargasso Sea

Slightly edited by me:

The Atlantic Ocean is a magnet for myths. It is the home of the Bermuda Triangle, that infamous swallower of ships to those who will swallow anything. To the south-west of the 'Bay' is the Sargasso Sea, a real place when a huge gyre of currents encircles an area the size of Greenland, trapping floating seaweed. Here, it has been said, web-footed tribes of mermen live beneath the wrack. Columbus thought he had sighted land only to become becalmed for a fortnight in a wilderness of weed, while below deck his crew discussed mutiny. It was claimed that the malicious plants 'surround the ship in such quantities as to retard its progress'. ... the floating rafts of Sargassum weed are only thirty feet across at most and couldn't possibly impede the progress of a ship coaxed forward by a breeze. And therein lies the problem; the Sargasso Sea is almost forgotten by the winds.

As often happens, the folklore obscures the true wonder of the place. It is estimated that over 10 millions tons of Sargassum drift within the gyre. Curiously, the usually fecund plants have forgotten how to become fertile. Instead, they rely on fragments breaking off and growing into independent plants identical to their parent. They are cloning themselves and therefore may live for ever. So if you are ever becalmed in the doldrums of the Sargasso Sea, lean over the side and hook up a plant - it may have been last handled by Columbus.

The freshwater eels that abound in the rivers of Europe and the eastern seaboard of America breed elsewhere. When they are eight or ten years old they change into silver livery, promptly swim down to the sea and are never seen again. In the spring, trillions of tiny juveniles appear in every estuary and swim upstream where they grow into adult eels. Where do they come from? Astonishingly, the eels breed only on the bottom of the Sargasso Sea and then die. It takes their tiny finless larvae three years to drift the 2,500 miles back to the European rivers from which their parents departed. Nobody knows why somewhere nearer to home won't do for breeding. Clearly, the Sargasso Sea must be a very special place.

The mystery is not quite solved, for no one has yet retrieved an adult eel or a fertilised egg from the bottom of the Sargasso Sea. Eels seem to hold on to their secrets. A young research student dissected over four hundred eels, but failed to locate their reproductive organs. He gave up and went off to study human psychology where evidence of sex would be much easier to find. His name was Sigmund Freud.

part 5

part4

part 3

part 1

A distinguished marine biologist writes - very well

The distinguished marine biologist is called Trevor Norton and the book is called Under Water to get out of the Rain. I shall just write extracts from his book in order to share it.

Here is a history of the giant squid:

As more specimens appeared a new species was established, the giant squid. The kraken was now authenticated and larger ones would come to light, but very few would be caught alive and none have yet been seen underwater, for with the biggest eye in the animal kingdom and the ability to jet around at ten feet per second, giant squid can easily evade anything that approaches and arouses its suspicion.

In 1938 a scientist with the Min of Agriculture and Fisheries examined the carcasses on a whaling ship and reported that  'nearly all the sperm whales carry scars caused by the suckers.... of large squids, scars up to ten centimeters in diameter being common'. Suckers of this size indicate an animal with a body perhaps thirty feet long and arms almost twice. One species of shark feeds almost entirely on Mesonychoteuthis (colossal squid). The dimensions of a recently caught juvenile colossal squid indicate that a full-grown adult probably reaches fifty feet in length. 

He concludes this passage with his certainty that there are still some large species in the sea that have not yet been discovered.

You can see links to discoveries here: Great website with fascinating sea news

However, the fun bits of the book are about Trevor's own experiences as a marine biologist. He is not that much older than me, but he can remember when conditions on the coast and at sea were very different. More soon.

Being a Man

We are going to a talk on Being a Man by Grayson Perry at the Southbank. Grayson will have given a lot of thought to this topic and I hope he's going to say some interesting things about it. It has been pointed out to me that my husband is a very stereotypical sort of man. He doesn't think much about his clothes or do anything new with his hair (what's left of it), he is chattier to women than he is to men, he gets together with other men to do things (row, make committee decisions) rather than for social reasons, he takes his friends for granted, he keeps up with sport (perhaps in order to talk with other men about it?), he doesn't notice dust or mess, he is happier mending things than buying things, he has nothing to say about his emotions most of the time, he hides behind a newspaper when motionless. On the other hand, some men would not go to a talk on Being a Man, and my husband is looking forward to it, so there you are, he can still surprise me.

I wonder if this talk will mention any of the above, and debunk it all, or decry it all!

In the Sherlock episode we have just seen there was the most ghastly bromance between Sherlock and Watson. They kept talking about their feelings for each other and praising each other in public. Really, it was completely out of character. I don't mind Sherlock hinting that he has feelings by perhaps, sulking or looking grumpy, but not this gushy stuff that would make the girliest girl look a bit soppy...

I loved the bit where they went all out for a big drunken stag night and in spite of Sherlock's calculations, they got drunk, incompetent, sleepy, sick, and home within 2 hours. I roared as it seemed all too familiar. It was a funny episode but I prefer the characters to be consistent. Sherlock's wall of mystery and restraint crumbled away like an Oxo cube.

Enjoyed the Lake District

When the children are little you often think holidays are almost more trouble than they are worth. There is so much clobber to take, everything is so expensive and when you are away the children so frequently go down with asthma or eczema or ear infections, and then there were the two occasions on which dear F was discovered to have head lice. Yuck!! All to be dealt with in a shack in Norfolk on a very quiet stretch of coast, or a caravan on a Welsh cliff. Oh Lord. Or, if you go with friends, where your peer group are making helpful suggestions and unintentionally suggesting you are incompetent. (Maybe it's intentional? Maybe they are right?)

But this time I enjoyed it all, and had a great feeling of being myself amongst friends and having freedom to fool around as much as I like, and I am even quite happy to deal with all the muddy and damp clothes because it is lovely when they are all put away for next time. I like having a look at the photos, of course.

Derwent Water from Cat Bells

Each hand was carved from one tree trunk - weathering away now, sadly. By Derwent water

To Watendlath

A boggy bit

Lake District again

This time we are in Borrowdale, and we are a couple of miles from Keswick. We overlook Derwent water and, on the first day we climbed Cat Bells, which is just across some boggy land from where we are staying. On the second day I stayed in and marked some work and generally made myself at home. I have seldom felt so really comfortable in a holiday home. This one has an ensuite bathroom for each room (even the cupboard room where S is sleeping) and there are two comfortable sitting rooms, though neither is big enough for all 20 of us. The views are fantastic and yesterday we climbed up beside the Loder Falls which were in full spate and very dramatic. It was quite a tough climb and because we didn't start until after the rain stopped, we were on one of the tops (Jopplety How) (no, really) admiring the view when the sun went down behind a peak and I felt we must hurry to get down and be on the road when darkness fell, which we managed to do, but only just. We all got home from walks at about the same time and changed for the big night. Then the "children" prepared a buffet and some pizzas and quiches for our party, which they did beautifully. We played charades a lot but alas, there was no music and dancing, which we have enjoyed in previous years. Peter and Danny play the ukelele and the guitar and sing when the mood takes them, which is lovely.