Attack of the quarter-ton, 'fridge-sized' killer jellyfish The US government has warned that enormous swarms of killer jellyfish - some the size of fridges and weighing up to a quarter of a ton - are ravaging the world's oceans. Particularly aggressive specimens are said to be capable of causing serious damage to ships, and have even managed to knacker nuclear power plants. News of …
"Ladies and gentlemen, er, we've just lost the picture, but, uh, what we've seen speaks for itself. The cargo ship has been taken over -- "conquered", if you will -- by a master race of giant jellyfish. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the jellyfish will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new jellyfish overlords."
Mine is the one covered in slime, ta.
Reminded of that episode of Blake's 7 where aliens have taken over Star One and when they get shot turn into what can only be described as massive jelly style bogies?
The point about the fist sized jellyfishes gave me visions of them trying to invade divers through their wetsuits. I'm a landlubber and staying well away from the ocean now!
All in all this is pretty scary stuff. When are the Western governments going to declare war on jellyfishes and declare posession of any gelatinous creature a terrorist offence? "Stay back copper! I've got a jar of jellied eels here and I'm not afraid to use them!"...
"Humanity's rule may not be overturned in a Day, then, but a Night of Slime as the squelchy brutes cut the power and plunge the peoples of the Earth into their final darkness."
A darkness punctuated by the eerie glow of green fluorescent protein, which may explain the Nobel committee's decision on the chemistry prize this year.
Is this a new measure of volume? There is potentially room for something between the football and the Olympic-sized swimming pool.
I for one will avoid tired "I for one" comments and instead think up some kind of reference to wondrous grot and secret cells.
I guess you could talk about climate change as the latter fire that heats the deep, actually. A win for victorian poetry!
"..It's a shame that you couldn't refrain yourself from mocking it..."
This is an article by Lewis Page on The Register. It's to be expected. You know he makes sense.
P.S. It's either '..refrain from mocking..' or '..restrain yourself from mocking..' You probably got confused there.
... I'm buying a nuclear bunker for when the jellyfish and machines slog it our over who will rule us. Me I'm in favour of the machines, they make better coffee.
Playmobil mock up of how this fight could look, in the interests of the public you know, we need to be prepared for this messy war (oh so messy).
Mines the one that has 'mahine overlords forever' on the back and on the inside has 'jelly fish overlords forever' (well you never know who will get the upper hand).
Blast them with UV rays! That's what Capt Kirk did to the ones he encountered on Deneva on stardate 3287.2... that's probably why their spawning grounds are in dark dank parts of the oceans, systematically cleansed of vertebrate life.
Oh woe is mankind, for Steve Irwin is gone, protector of us from seaborne invasions!
The jellyfish are breeding, swarming and eating cos there's an abundance of certain types of food, which is because we've been overfishing certain other fish that eat that same food. Jellyfish swarms are a bit of a ocean balancing-act and within a short period of time the amount of available food will start to drop and the jellyfish population with it.
If we stop the overintensive fishing now, the whole thing should work itself out quite nicely.
Let's vary our fish diets and stop throwing catch overboard. Let's make sure we don't haul whole shoals out of the see in a oner.
All will be well.
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