Wild Things:
Life as We Know It
Toucans, Orchids, Monkeys and more
- By Amanda Bensen, Abby Callard, T.A. Frail, Ashley Luthern and Sarah Zielinski
- Smithsonian magazine, October 2009
(Reinhard Dirscherl / Alamy)
Working in Palau, California Institute of Technology bioengineers found that dye poured in the sea traveled some distance after jellyfish swam through it. The data suggest that the movements of marine creatures play a larger role in "ocean mixing" than previously believed—as great as winds and tides. Mixing can affect water temperature and the movement of nutrients in the ocean.
Learn more about mastigias jellyfish at the Encyclopedia of Life.
Read more about jellyfish at our Surprising Science blog.
Additional Sources
"Fire as an Engineering Tool of Early Modern Humans," Kyle S. Brown et al., Science, August 14, 2009
"Fire and Stone," John Webb and Marian Domanski, Science, August 14, 2009
"Heat Exchange from the Toucan Bill Reveals a Controllable Vascular Thermal Radiator," Glenn J. Tattersall et al., Science, July 24, 2009
"Orchid Mimics Honey Bee Alarm Pheromone in Order to Attract Hornets for Pollination," Jennifer Brodmann et al., Current Biology, August 25, 2009
"A viscosity-enhanced mechanism for biogenic ocean mixing," Kakani Katija and John O. Dabiri, Nature, July 30, 2009
"Monkeys crying wolf? Tufted capuchin monkeys use anti-predator calls to usurp resources from conspecifics," Brandon C. Wheeler, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, June 3, 2009
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