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Science

Fishermen Net Giant Squid Off Tasmania 19

Posted by timothy from the jellicle dept.
Jake Dodgie writes: "A giant squid Architeuthis like the one made famous by Peter Benchley, the famed author of Jaws, in his book Beast has been netted in waters off Tasmania this week. Get the story at Museum Victoria's Web site."
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Fisherman Net Giant Squid Off Tasmania More

Fisherman Net Giant Squid Off Tasmania

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  • Every squid fisherperson has a story about one that was "thiiis biiig" ...but it got away!
  • I was so enthused thinking they'd finally caught a live giant squid, but the article said it was just another dead one. And it's not even as big as some of the previous examples shown in the documentary.

    Too bad.

    Of course, I wouldn't have wanted to be on the boat with a live giant squid.

  • I think it might be very difficult to bring one of them to the surface without killing it. They live in over 500m of water and while they apparently rise some to feed they are deep water dwellers. The change in preassure as they got to the surface might kill them.
  • In short, is there any way someone could produce the first live specimen of a giant squid by sticking DNA from the next dead one found into "live" eggs of another squid variety?
  • For years and years we've been finding all these "dead" giant squid, but we've never found a "live" one. When are scientists going to face up to the fact that maybe they aren't as smart as they think they are? These giant squid aren't dead. They are alive and living perfectly happily (until we cut them up and put them into jars, and even then who knows?); they are just faking death hoping we'll let them go. "Science" just doesn't have the knowledge to know that just because it isn't alive by current standards doesn't mean that it isn't alive in some other way. What if they are hyperdimensional beings? What if their body is contained in three dimensions, but their "life" and "spirit" are contained elsewhere? What if they are a hive society and they have no brain when seperated from the queen? All these holier than thou scientists really piss me off. If we are so smart that we can boats under the water and on top of the water AT THE SAME TIME, why can't we find a couple animals that are 300 feet long?
  • I think it might be very difficult to bring one of them to the surface without killing it.

    I don't think people have even seen live giant squid. I know there have been several deep diving expeditions, including the one that was on the Discovery channel. It's hard to be excited over finding yet another dead one. Even if it is in better condition than usual.

  • We could sell the results to the Japanese restraunts and make a fortune.

    (Hey! That's how to "fund" Open Source! Let's start mass-cloning giant squid, and flood the sushi market!)

  • Re:Sushi! (Score:2)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    I doubt most restraunt goers would notice the difference. Besides, it'd probably kill all those spiral bacterial in the stomach that cause ulcers.
  • Wow! Boats that are on top of the water and under the water at the same time? Remarkable! And all this time, I thought that boats were either 100% above the waterline, or completely submerged. How do you get them to balance partway submerged like that? Is it magic? I thought it was just a special-effects embellishment when the titanic sank slowly in the movie... I figured in real life it was skipping along on top of the waves until it zinged that iceberg, and then it instantly became submerged. Technology is amazing. With super-boats like these, we will surely catch those giant squid.
  • You're a fucking moron. I can't put it any easier than that. These are fucking squid, not the Borg. Maybe the squids are hyper-intelligent, and are just acting dead. They're actually highly evolved beings that, once cut up by scientists, can reassmeble themselves using the same technology as the T1000. Liquid metal baby. But they're all just drones, because the Squid Queen speaks for them. And by the way, o sage, we live in a 4-dimensional universe, NOT 3. Hense "space-time." Stop doing so much acid, that shit makes you think stupidly like that.
  • First, it was a joke (maybe a bad one) so take it as such.

    And, by the way, we actually live in a 10 dimensional universe. 3 spacial dimensions, a time dimension and the other 6 are rolled up in a space so small we can't see them. At least, this is the hypothesis of hyperdimensional physics theories. I said we were 3d beings because our minds can only SEE 3 dimensions (though we can sense a fourth, can you really visualize a 4d object?). Some physicists don't even think the fourth dimension is really a time dimension, it just feels that way to us since we can't see it.

    Oh, and I don't do acid, I just have a bad sense of humor.

  • Interesting you should bring up cloning. I have a BS in Marine Biology and a BS in Information Systems (go figure). My focus of studies in Marine Bio was cephalopods (squids, octopuses, cuttlefish, and nautiluses). If I was going to continue with my education in Marine Bio I was going to try and get funding to clone the giant squid to actually see one alive. But since we know so little about it and its genetic makeup since the governments think mammals are far superior to clone than invertebrates we would not be able to find a suitable egg to inject the dna necessary. Scientists have attached underwater cameras to sperm whales, which has been known to dine on giant squids, to catch a glimpse of giant squids but to no avail. We need governments to realize the potential of the deep sea and give proper funding. I have corresponded with some marine biologists in Spain concerning deep sea cirrate octopods and they told me they receive funding to go in a submersible to photograph these creatures once every ten years. In other words, don't hold your breath to see video or photos of a live giant squid in your lifetime.

    IS
  • A 10-dimensional universe is a therom of tensor calculus, and theres not much more "proof" to it then that a few gravity calculations work out well in it.

    Somebody: if I'm wrong please correct me :)

  • "In short, is there any way someone could produce the first live specimen of a giant squid by sticking DNA from the next dead one found into "live" eggs of another squid variety?"

    Generally, the more "primitive" an animal, the easier it is to clone, so it could very well be possible.

    Unfortunately, to produce a living giant squid clone, we need a living giant squid to provide the donor nucleus for the cloning process. In the (non-crackpot) cases where a dead animal has been cloned, it was done with tissue samples removed either before or just immediately after death. So, a dead squid would work only if it was so fresh that not all of it's tissues had technically died yet.

  • Oh, didn't know you were joking. And yeah, I knew it was 10-dimensions, the 6-dimensional universe is small enough (Planck length), but physicsts think that if/when the Big Crunch happens, as our 4-dimensional universe shrinks, the 6-dimensional one will begin to open up, possibly as a route of escape. For a good read on this, go to Amazon and search for a book named "Hyperspace," talks about time warps, wormholes, 10-dimensional space, etc. Anyways, my fault, sorry.
  • If you're talking about the one by Michio Kaku, I read it a couple years ago. Good book.
  • some guy (it was in an issue of Discovery magazine, I forget which one) has worked out a Unified theory of stuff that works just fine if you eliminate time from all equations. so what we're 'experiencing' is just an infinite number of universes strung together to make it appear as if we're moving from one state to another.

    with that in mind, hyperdimensional calimari that are fake 3-dimensional death to escape not-as-smart-as-we-think-we-are scientists doesn't sound that implausible, ne?
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • The reason nobody nets giant squid is becuase they live at exheedingly deep levels, where there is no point in setting nets. They ain't hyper intelligent, just rare (a carenvore that big needs a large radius to support) and live deep in trecherous seas
  • We could sell the results to the Japanese restraunts and make a fortune.

    Or not...:

    "These giant rings may appeal as a rare culinary treat. However, cancel the order for a giant wok as the squid tastes of ammonia, commonly used in strong household cleaners. Animals such as giant squid use ammonia, a very light gas, for buoyancy, allowing them to move up into less deep waters for feeding."

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