Life Not as We Know It

One episode of the BBC series PLANET EARTH: BLUE PLANET II highlights denizens of the ocean depths that thrive independently of energy from the sun. They rely on energy from other sources, and some have no need of oxygen.

Some live in methane-rich environments known as "cold seeps" or "cold vents":

Cold Seeps

These spots aren't "cold" in the absolute sense, just less hot than the hot vents referenced below. Bacteria, mussels, and tube worms live happily in the methane or hydrogen sulfide of these ecosystems. Some individual tube worms have been estimated to survive for 250 years in such locations. If similar life-forms developed on other planets in environments like these, in the absence of competition from oxygen-dependent and sunlight-dependent creatures, and eventually became intelligent, a lifespan of that length would allow them plenty of time to learn and pass on their learning to future generations.

Other organisms have evolved in the volcanically active areas around hydrothermal vents, where water can reach temperatures of several hundred degrees Fahrenheit:

Hydrothermal Vents

Like inhabitants of cold vents, life-forms in hydrothermal vents also depend on chemosynthetic bacteria for food. Crustaceans, tube worms and other types of worms, gastropods such as snails, and even eels are among some of the creatures that populate these locations. It's believed that life on Earth may have originated in an environment like this. Again, on a planet where this kind of environment dominated, we can imagine that hyrdrothermal-vent species might evolve sentience and intelligence.

So living creatures can exist right here on our planet in conditions that would be lethal to most Earth species. The quest for extraterrestrial life needn't confine itself to oxygen-rich environments. Moreover, we don't have to expect advanced beings to conform to the familiar humanoid shape. In Heinlein's HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL, the teenage narrator describes the villain, an invader from a distant solar system. He's puzzled that these decidedly inhuman-looking aliens can survive in Terran environmental conditions, until he reminds himself that spiders resemble us much less, yet they live in our houses. We don't have to search beyond Earth's ecological systems to find bizarrely alien creatures.

The Wikipedia articles include some color photos of those exotic organisms. Take a look.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

The Wonders of Jellyfish

If possible, pick up a copy of the October NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and contemplate the dazzling photos in the article on jellyfish. Typical jellyfish (not all of which are related to each other; the general name is popularly applied to different groups of creatures) have a complicated life cycle. The adult stage, the parachute-like shape with tentacles that we're most familiar with, is called a medusa. Medusae reproduce sexually, releasing eggs and sperm into the water. The larval stage, known as planula, anchors itself on a rock or the sea bottom, where it becomes a polyp. Polyps reproduce asexually, budding off multiple clones called ephyra, which grow into new medusae.

The highly toxic Portuguese man-of-war illustrates a transitional phase between a colony of separate organisms and their union into a larger, more complex creature. What looks like an individual is "technically a colony that developed from the same embryo."

The oral arms—the tendrils that sweep food into the mouth—of some jellyfish have mouths on the streamers themselves, a feature that sounds like a model for a Lovecraftian eldritch monster.

One species has a unique, almost unbelievable ability to revert to the polyp stage and start life over when confronted by environmental stress such as near-starvation or severe injury, sort of like reincarnation. By producing clones of itself that become medusae, which in turn transform back into polyps, and repeating the cycle, it effectively never dies (at least from "natural causes") or grows old.

The Immortal Jellyfish

Understanding this process of "cell recycling," called "transdifferentiation," could make a vital contribution to stem cell research.

If an intelligent species with an alternating sexual-asexual and mobile-stationary life cycle existed on some alien planet, it would surely have a social structure very different from ours, especially if it followed the jellyfish pattern of producing myriads of offspring with every instance of sexual reproduction. Of course, such alien sapient beings couldn't be jellyfish as we know them, which have no brains. It's also hard to imagine an r-selected species, one that engenders huge numbers of fast-maturing young in hopes that some may survive, evolving intelligence. It wouldn't have the long childhood and parental care that we assume to be essential to intelligence as we know it. What about intelligence not-as-we-know-it, though? Could animals similar to jellyfish, given some sort of neural network, develop a hive mind? After all, in one phase of their life cycle, they're clones, so they might conceivably have a shared consciousness. Genetically identical "immortal jellyfish" have been discovered in widely scattered parts of the Earth. Might similar organisms on another planet belong to a worldwide group mind? If so, what would they think of us as solitary individuals?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

What Are We Putting In The Ocean?

I'm just back from a short vaction in Florida, and I cannot say that I came away feeling very proud of people.

The signs say, "Keep Off The Dunes". Do people keep off the dunes? No. They sit on them for an elevated view. They let their dogs play on them. They sleep on them. They take a short cut across them instead of using the boardwalks.

Dunes are important and fascinating, not only for protecting the coast from winds and storm surges. Specialized creatures live in them, and specialized plants grow on them. The roots of sea oats help to keep the sand from being blow inland.  Beach grass dies if people walk on it and break its stems.
More info http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/swc/shoreline/pages/duneprotection.aspx

The signs say "No Dogs" (between certain hours). One sees dogs during the no-dogs hours. The rules say that dogs must be on a leash during the hours when dogs are allowed. Are they?  In most cases, not.  I was harassed by a large excited dog as I stood in the shin-deep surf.

Apart from that, the beach was littered with glass, aluminum, styrofoam, and plastic trash. Alas.  It all contributes to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. or the Great Atlantic Garbage Patch. But that's nothing. I should have been in Seattle.

What is it with Seattle? Perhaps the people there are more stressed than Americans anywhere else. Or perhaps, they think they aren't because of all the drugs they ingest and excrete.

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/03/18/salmon-full-of-cocaine-and-antidepressants-study-finds-puget-so/21330104/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl12%7Csec3_lnk4%26pLid%3D1115464555

"Researchers found cocaine, Advil, Prozac, Lipitor, Benadryl and dozens of other drugs in the tissue of juvenile chinook salmon caught in the Puget Sound in September 2014, the Seattle Times reported in February. The salmon likely picked up the drugs from wastewater in the area that's a "[cocktail] of 81 drugs," as the Seattle Times put it."

Alas. That is wild-caught Pacific salmon. And, I thought that I was okay if I avoided the farmed Atlantic salmon.

"Other drugs found in the wastewater include (but aren't limited to): Aleve, Flonase, Paxil, Tylenol, Tagamet, Valium, Zoloft, Darvon, OxyContin, caffeine, nicotine fungicides, antiseptics, anticoagulants, Cipro and other "antibiotics galore," the Seattle Times reported."

Imagine, though, the science fiction (I almost typed fishion) possibilities of self-aware, laid back, buzzed, sleepy, obese, bacteria-resistant, indigestion-free sea life! They didn't mention the sexually stimulating drugs, but one might expect that among the 81 drug cocktail, something of the sort would be there.

Toilets of the future ought to be designed with their own reservoirs... like back to cess pits!!! Or a water feature wall of their home, on the other side of the home from an Elon Musk-like solar/battery recycling power wall.  Come to think of it, if one churned one's greywater, one might create hydroelectic power, too.  Bill Gates was recently on TV drinking recycled urine. Perhaps, if people drank their own recycled pee, they would get better value from their drugs as a side effect.

A possible solution for the future might be to have two toilets in every bathroom. #1 and #2  One would save a lot of water that way.  And, keep the juvenile chinook salmon in better health.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry