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Science

Giant Octopus Attacks Sub 322

Posted by Zonk from the not-as-cool-as-you-think dept.
Apostata writes "As reported by the CBC, 'Salmon researchers working on the Brooks Peninsula [British Columbia] were shocked last November when an octopus attacked their expensive and sensitive equipment.' Apparently it was caught on video, but no word on when/where it will be available. Apparently this is the first documented attack." Obviously the start of something bigger.
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Giant Octopus Attacks Sub More

Giant Octopus Attacks Sub

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  • Video of attack (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bananatree3 ( 872975 ) * on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:48PM (#14585779)

    A link to the original video can be found on this page [seaeye.com] (video is 2.9Mbyte .mpg file). Also, a mirror of the video can be found here [zippyvideos.com]. The link above to the video page has a detailed summary of what happened:

    A giant pacific octopus attacked a Seaeye Falcon ROV working off Vancouver Island as it was locating and recovering receivers tracking pacific offshore salmon migration.

    The incident was caught on the ROV's video by Mike Wood of SubOceanic Sciences Canada. He had just located a data recorder and taken a grip of the cable with the ROV's manipulator arm, when suddenly an 80 lb octopus launched an attack.

    With tentacles 'as thick as man's arm' and a bite that he believed can exert 1000 lbs pressure, Mike Wood feared the octopus would bite the camera cable or umbilical and trip out the Falcon ROV.

    Not wanting to lose the receiver that he had just located he decided to take on the creature and after tightening his grip of the cable with the manipulator arm, revved the ROV's thrusters in reverse in an attempt to blast seabed particles at the creature. For a moment the octopus appeared to intensify its attack with its mantle flared but eventually the swirling fragments drove it away.

    The giant pacific octopus, octopus dofleini, is the largest species of octopods and although it grows to an average weight of 50 to 90 lbs with a span of 16 ft, a monster 600 lbs one has been recorded. They are intelligent creatures who can negotiate mazes and learn to unscrew jars to remove food. No problem disassembling an ROV then.

  • Are you sure? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bizitch ( 546406 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:49PM (#14585785) Homepage
    Wasnt this an episode of Sealab 2021?

  • The Video is At the CBC (Score:5, Informative)

    by LISNews ( 150412 ) * on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:49PM (#14585793) Homepage
    This Page @ The CBC [www.cbc.ca] has the video in Real [www.cbc.ca] or Quicktime [www.cbc.ca].
    In the video some "octopus expert" said "could've been lookin' for a girlfriend, could've been senile".
    Sounds like some kind of oceanographer joke: Why did the octopus attack the sub? "could've been lookin' for a girlfriend"
  • I for one welcome our giant submarine attacking overlords!

  • Dr. Venkman once said... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:51PM (#14585803) Homepage
    Obviously the start of something bigger.

    Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.

  • Don't blame the Octopus (Score:5, Funny)

    by dangitman ( 862676 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:51PM (#14585805)
    It was just looking for seamen to swallow.

  • I -clearly- need to get out more. (Score:4, Funny)

    by MaXiMiUS ( 923393 ) <maximius@gm a i l . com> on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:54PM (#14585822)
    I LIVE on Vancouver Island, and Slashdot knew about something of this scale before me? MAN do I need to get out more.

  • 8 Giant Tentacles!!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:56PM (#14585837)
    This thing is going to be huge in Japan.

  • Not so giant... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TuxMelvin ( 97727 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:56PM (#14585841) Homepage
    When I hear "Giant Octopus Attacks Sub" for some reason I imagine something a lot larger than 80lbs. Then I read the story and find out it's not really a GIANT Octopus, and he wasn't attacking a 688 Attack Sub.

    So it's not all it's cracked up to be. Huh. Why do I feel like I've done this before?

    • Re:Not so giant... (Score:5, Informative)

      by B3ryllium ( 571199 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @12:17AM (#14586266) Homepage
      Well, you've nailed it on the "sub" portion; most other sites had "mini-sub" in the headline. However, the Octopus *is* giant. It's the name of the species. One was reported to be 600lbs, though that's obviously above the statistical average.

      They're strong buggers, too. If you were underwater and had a choice between a shark or an octopus attacking you, go with the shark. You have a better chance of survival.

    • Re:Not so giant... (Score:5, Informative)

      by joNDoty ( 774185 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @12:57AM (#14586443)
      This article is an eye-roller. The octopus didn't attack at all. Even before seeing the video I was a bit skeptical how one could distinguish an "attack" from other activity. If you watch the video you'll see that the octopus was moving very slowly, and only touched the sub with the tip of one, maybe two tentacles before the sub kicked up a lot of debris and got it to leave.

      It's still a cool video, though.
    • When I hear "Giant Octopus Attacks Sub" for some reason I imagine something a lot larger than 80lbs.

      It was a pygmy giant octopus.

    • Looking at the video, doesnt look much like an attack... Lots of arms flailing around.. rocks ...

  • This is not the first ! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by puiahappy ( 855662 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:56PM (#14585842) Homepage
    Phillipine Giant Octopus Attack in December 27 1989 read more http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bz050/goattack.html [carleton.ca]. And some intresting information about giant octopuses can be found here http://www.gabourgeois.com/giantocto.html [gabourgeois.com]

    • Re:This is not the first ! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > Phillipine Giant Octopus Attack in December 27 1989 read more http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bz050/goattack.html [carleton.ca].

      From the link...

      "This story sounds a little fishy too me. It seems strange that an octopus would leave the bottom and come up and attack a boat. Octopi stay near the bottom, and even big ones are timid. Many divers have swum with the giant octopus off the coast of British Columbia, which can grow to 272 kilograms and have a 9.6 metres arm span, and the octopi always swim away. And finally, to e

      • The best link you can provide to your story about an earlier occurance is a link that tries to prove the story false?

        Eh the guy has probably never been to south east asia. Theres weird shit hanging off every third coconut tree in some parts, winking at you. The filipinos probably saw something with tentacles rising up and flipping the boat, it just probably wasn't an octopus. Maybe it was a new species or something. There are places in this world where mankind has a much less secure foothold than we lik

    • dupe? [online-literature.com]
      www.online-literature.com/verne/leaguesunder

  • Best quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27, 2006 @10:57PM (#14585847)
    "I go full reverse and blast him with all these seabed particles," said Wood, describing the attack shown in the video. "Finally, he lets go and disappears off into the gloom.

    "It was desperation. It's a $200,000 machine, and it's not insured," said Wood, who runs SubOceanic Sciences Canada in Duncan, B.C.

    Even when you get your sub insured they neglect to mention you have to pay extra for underinsured gaint squid and octopus coverage.

  • Ouch! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:00PM (#14585864) Homepage
    an octopus attacked their expensive and sensitive equipment

    Ouch, that sounds painful. Anybody ever had an octopus stuck to their sensitive equipment?

  • This All Sounds Familiar (Score:3, Informative)

    by good soldier svejk ( 571730 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:08PM (#14585906)
    OK, so maybe the incident I am remembering was a squid. [weichtiere.at] But a giant cephalopod is a giant cephalopod, right? [philipkdickfans.com]

  • Proof the advertising is everywhere (Score:4, Funny)

    by FerretFrottage ( 714136 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:12PM (#14585928)
    Nice to see the Subway is now sending images of Jared and those mouth watering tasty subs into the deep blue. They now have one new customer. Hopefully the video will answer if our eight legged, ink blotting friend likes mayo or mustard, and whole wheat or plain.

    BSG commerical over---back to eating my sub....

  • ROV != Sub (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shashark ( 836922 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:14PM (#14585938)
    Interestingly, the article does not mention that the so-called submarine is infact a Remote Operated Vehicle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROV [wikipedia.org]). A ROV, technically, can be termed as a submarine though from TFA it appears that author chooses to call this ROV a "sub" to generate some interest.

    And the so-called Giant Octopus weighed about 45 kgs. Hardly Giant.

    Anyway.

    • Touch != Attack (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dereference ( 875531 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:42PM (#14586086)
      After watching the video, I'd hardly say it was an "attack" given that it seemed more like the octopus was simply checking out the ROV. I'm not a marine animal behaviorist, but there certainly didn't seem to be anything malicious or even dangerous. At best it seemed actively curious.

      It's always easier when it's not your expensive toy down there, but it seems the operator was in panic mode. I'd like to think that if it were my ROV, I'd have held off on that little counter-offensive stunt a little longer, until I saw at least some indication of hostility. In the video, the octopus has barely started reaching toward the ROV by the time its starts getting pelted by the gravel. My guess is that the encounter would have ended quite peacefully, without any aggression on either side, and we would have had even more footage of this interesting interaction.

  • Check on this article.. [blueplanetdivers.org] -
    .... well lets say the giant Octopus thought he was food - and so he earned a nice tatoo when the squid tried to gnaw on him from the head down.

  • Was this really an attack? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:27PM (#14586012) Homepage
    I just watched the video and it looks like the Octopus was checking what the heck this thing was doing in his environment. Once he/she approached the ROV, the guy operating it revved the motors and sprayed debris at the unsuspecting Octopus. How do we really know this isn't so some sort of sick and twisted oceanographer that gets his kicks off luring unsuspecting cephalopods into the ROV engine's thrusts? Sure he says that his little submarine was getting attacked but my guess this isn't the first time he has fucked with invertebrate mammals. I think there is more here than meets the eye. Where is ASPCA [aspca.org]?
    • my guess this isn't the first time he has fucked with invertebrate mammals
      Since when is an octupus a mammal?!?! That and there is no such thing as an invertebrate mammal.

      How do we really know this isn't so some sort of sick and twisted oceanographer that gets his kicks off luring unsuspecting cephalopods into the ROV engine's thrusts?
      How did you get to that conclusion, did you watch the video? It doesn't matter if the octopus was attacking the sub or just extending a friendly greeting, the octopus was
      • he said right off the bat "i just watched the video." it does seem a bit suspect to me. the headline is a bit scandalous, but that's expected around here. i didn't see much "attacking" by the octopus. and yes, mammal was not the right word.
        • So how exactly would you define an "attack" and how would that differ from what we saw here?

          given that the operator was responsible for a 200K piece of equipment, that no one really knows what an attack looks like, and had to make a quick descision I cant say I would have done any different.

          As far as you or I know if the operator had not acted in this way the equipment may be swimming with the titaic.

    • Where is the ASPCA? (Score:4, Funny)

      by TCQuad ( 537187 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @12:44AM (#14586394)
      Off defending something cuter.
    • A $200,000 dollar machine, high price pilot, and an expensive per hour charge places enough pressure on the pilot and manager to get the job done as efficiently as possible. Wasting valuable ship time looking at an octopus, as interesting as it may be, will typically be reviewed as wasted time and money by the client unless the client is interested in marine life and willing to pay for it.

    • Re:Was this really an attack? (Score:5, Funny)

      by mithras the prophet ( 579978 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @12:54PM (#14588265) Homepage Journal
      Check out the cephalopod's side of the story [zapatopi.net]:

      Innocent giant pacific octopus residing off Vancouver Island in Cascadia suffer malicious attack by remotely operated human submarine.

      Octopus find nice metal box left on sea floor. Box contain valuable information revealing whereabouts of tasty salmon. Law of the ocean: Finders keepers (see: Hermit v. Fiddler, 1987).

      Human submarine stealing box. Octopus protecting property. Human submarine blast octopus with mechanical siphons, rip two arms off octopus, steal box. Octopus pale with distress. Octopus demand restitution.

      Human submarine operators record crime, post crime video to Internet, make false accusations, show no shame.

      All octopus protest human crime. Will bite transoceanic Internet cables unless salmon information box returned to rightful octopus owner. Octopus lose salmon information, humans lose celebrity gossip.

  • If I found a Sub way under the ocean I'd try to get something to eat, too...

  • Outrageous (Score:5, Funny)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:37PM (#14586062) Homepage
    This attack was terrible and completely unprovoked, I think we need to strike back at the octopuses with full force to show that we can't be pushed around! This giant octopus attacked a sub, so I say we build a giant sub to attack an octopus!!

    Those Octopussies won't know what hit 'em!!

  • Defensive measures for future ROV missions (Score:5, Funny)

    by spamster ( 766232 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:40PM (#14586072)
    From here on out, all subs will be equipped with miniature Kirk Douglas's armed with spears to fend off these ferocious attacks!

  • Mike Wood? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ppanon ( 16583 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:42PM (#14586082) Homepage Journal
    Are you sure his last name wasn't Nemo?

  • I didn't know (Score:4, Funny)

    by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:52PM (#14586128)
    that the flying spaghetti monster could swim. Apparently his noodly appendage doesn't like we filth his sea's with sub's.
    • Well, he did create everything + a midget out of nothing so swiming is the least of things he can do.
      Don't doubt his powers like those creationist/darwinian folks ;-).

  • Octopii are very curious creatures (Score:5, Interesting)

    by queenb**ch ( 446380 ) on Friday January 27, 2006 @11:53PM (#14586135) Homepage Journal
    Having done more than a bit of diving, I can tell you that many octopii are very curious creatures. They seem to come in two rather distinct varieties - the very shy ones that flee and the very curious that are quite willing to investigate your mask, tanks, etc. Many octopii are also very senstive to light and color. They seem to use color to communicate with each other. Depending on the type of octopii, many are quite sensitive to light, some being attracted to and some being repelled by it.

    I'm also betting that these folks had all their little lights blazing, all their little tools humming, and lord only know what else. I'm sure that they attracted the thing. Most people don't realize that octopii have problem-solving intelligence. (It's the one thing that makes me feel guilty about eating them. I guess if they were smarter they'd find a way not to taste so good) Anyway, because they're smart, they also investigate odd things. As fragile as they look, they are suprisingly strong. I've had an octopus not much bigger than my hand nearly pull my regulator out of my mouth. I can only imagine what 100lb octopus is capable of. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised they have sub left. I would suggest investigating to see if they can find out what they did to initiate the incident and "don't do that anymore."

    2 cents,

    Queen B
    • I've read about them in Aquariums that when they touch someone and the Human pulls back fast, they think it's play time and you get to hold tenticles for a good half hour before the critter thinks play time is over.

      Off the invertibrate track, I have a Green Iguana who lives in my living room on a large stainless steel "habitrail" and that Lizard is suprisingly smart for something whose brain stopped developing about 300 MYA. He is easily as smart as a cat or a dog, but without motivation, he was very easily

      • "From what I understand Octopi are easily smarter than a cat or a dog, so the one in the video might just be trying to play with the lights and thrusters.

        I wouldn't go quite that far. Some dogs are pretty damn smart. This page [fortunecity.com] suggests that they learn faster than a rat, but ultimately can't learn a skill as well. Additionally, one of the things that makes us treat dogs as "intelligent" is their ability to understand instructions from us. Octopuses are solitary animals, so they wouldn't have that abil

    • According to several American dictionaries, the plural of octopus can be octopuses or octopi (not octopii.) However, I was taught long ago that octopi is actually wrong, and octopuses is correct.

      Well, I looked it up on AskOxford [askoxford.com] and it turns out that octopi is wrong and octopuses is customary, but neither are correct. The most correct plural is octopodes, but I've never heard anyone use it.

      I used to dive (haven't in awhile) and I have yet to meet an octopus, but I have heard great stories about how curiou
      • > The most correct plural is octopodes, but I've never heard anyone use it.

        Yes. The -us isn't the familiar Latin ending. It's the Latinized form of Greek okto-pous "eightfoot".

        The root of pous is ped- or pod-, familiar in such terms as orthopedics, "foot straightening"; tetrapod, "fourfoot"; Oedipus (Greek Oidipous), "Clubfoot".

        The seemingly strange pous from pod- is an example of the common linguistic phenomenon called compensatory lengthening [wikipedia.org], the result of the nominative singular derivation pod- + -s.
      • It seems even the most authoritative references are inconsistent on this, though "octopi" is usually seen as strictly incorrect.

        Fowler's Modern English Usage states that "the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses", and that octopi is misconceived and octopodes pedantic. Octopi derives from the mistaken notion that octopus is Latin, which it is not. Rather, it is (Latinized) Greek, from oktopous, gender masculine, whose plural is oktopodes. If the word were Latin, it would be octopes ('eight-foot')

  • Fuck (Score:5, Funny)

    by erikharrison ( 633719 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @12:04AM (#14586192)
    Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long. In the last year we've seen the discovery of a super giant squid [bbc.co.uk], the first videos of a giant squid in the wild [nationalgeographic.com], and now this!

    Look.

    Do you know how fucking big a sperm whale is? It's huge. HUGE. And giant squid eat them. Listen to your heart - no matter what the scientists tell you, 4th grade ecology has convinced us all that whales are intelligent loving animals. Did you see Star Trek 4 [imdb.com]. They're the freakin' saviours of humanity man.

    And giant squid eat them

    Eat them

    Not beacause it's easy. Oh no, not because a sperm whale is an easy catch. Big, remember? No. It's because squid are evil incarnate

    Do you know how long they've been down there? No one does. But my guess is the squid and it's precurser have been down there in the depths for a lot longer than man has been knucklewalking. That's old. And you know they think down there. Brood down there. Their tentacles floating like the limbs of children relaxing in the water, they brood and wonder how to conquer us from below.

    Things that think and brood also dream. And things that dream begin to worship the stuff of dreams. Out of man's insecurity we have sublimated a great father figure into the sky, according to Freud. What about the tentacled things in the watery darkness, whose females are larger than their males?

    I'll tell you what they worship

    A great multilimbed mother of the dark watery brood. Deep down in the very molten cracks of the earth filling the sea with inky blackness. THAT's what they worship. We killed men in the crusades. Men who looked the same as other men. What will the dark octupi and squid do to US who are mere flabby bloodsacks to rip apart and drink out fluids with their beaky maws? What in the name of their Dark Mother goddess will they do to us when they rise into our airy realm?

    Think about it dudes

    Us computer geeks are basically fucked

    • Re:Fuck (Score:2, Funny)

      by pembo13 ( 770295 )
      BACK AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER Take a deep breath. Look around you. What time is it? If it's dark out, go get some sleep. If it's sun out, go take a walk. No seriously. You need help. WOOOOSAHHH

    • Re:Fuck (Score:4, Funny)

      by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @02:22AM (#14586680) Journal
      What in the name of their Dark Mother goddess will they do to us when they rise into our airy realm?... Us computer geeks are basically fucked

      If you'd like to learn more about this, perhaps to better defend yourself in the future, I believe the Japanese have a huge selection of documentaries on this very subject.

    • Re:Fuck (Score:3, Funny)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 )
      Do you know how long they've been down there? No one does. But my guess is the squid and it's precurser have been down there in the depths for a lot longer than man has been knucklewalking.

      Worse than that. Squid swam in the nightmarish primaeval seas alongside the first ancestral vertebrates. These loathsome mollusks are so utterly alien and horribly ancient that even the natural fishes of the sea are more closely related to us than to them.

      They've been lurking in the inky blackness for aeons longer tha

    • Us computer geeks are basically fucked

      In other news, media outlets report that thousands of computer geeks throughout the country have suddenly left their basements in a frantic rush towards the nearest seafood store or marine aquarium.

      "I mean, I know they're flabby cold-blooded cephalopods, but it's still better than nothing right ?" said one afflicted geek. "I, for one, can't wait to welcome our new sexually dominant molluscan overlords !"

    • Re:Fuck (Score:2, Interesting)

      by tootlemonde ( 579170 )

      dark watery brood

      Then make love in darkness,
      watery brood!
      I extinguish your light,
      I snatch the Gold from the crag,
      I will forge the avenging Ring

      --Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen

      flabby bloodsacks

      Vampire lingo, compare [plinkomedia.com]

      This is just one more example of how this world is tainted with the stench of uncouth bloodsacks. Enjoy what you laughingly call literature, for you are but cattle, soon to be culled on the cusp of my whetted fangs. I wait only to be converted by a dark master, and then your fate

  • Who's he kidding (Score:4, Funny)

    by caller9 ( 764851 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @12:09AM (#14586215)
    " revved the ROV's thrusters in reverse in an attempt to blast seabed particles at the creature."

    Sounds like a well thought out revisionist history of "HOLY SHIT REVERSE MAN REVERSE!!!eleven!"

    To me at least after viewing the video, he did what anyone would in a FPS. Run backward dropping 'nades to escape short range melee weapons in the hopes that his ass would survive long enough to get a new strategy. Good thing they had a rocky seabed or we would've seen the death of an ROV.

    Too bad they didn't build this thing with a strafe-jump and gibber, he could've misdirected then lead the octopus into a lunge in which he pushed the gibber against its head by using it's off-balance timing and commitment to the lunge.

    New headline: ROV driven by newb almost gets pwned by octopus.
  • "from the not-as-cool-as-you-think dept."

    Yes, it is as cool as I think, and even more so! Blasphemy!
  • Hi... I recently read one of Victor Hugo's lesser known works, Toilers Of The Sea. I enjoyed it and recommend it for any fan of Hugo. It kind of reminded me of Jude The Obscure meets Swiss Family Robinson.

    Anyway, this story reminds me of this book because of a fierce battle this guy has with a giant (or at least really big) octopus. The main strategic point to keep in mind; don't fight the arms, go for the head.

  • How about an octopus attacking a 4 foot shark? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dogbreathcanada ( 911482 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @12:48AM (#14586409)
    You can find the video at Google Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-700490962 2962894202&q=octopus+shark [google.com] The octopus in that video is deomstrating the same instinct as the octopus that attacked the sub.
  • They should attack it with a boomerang, or a bow and arrow...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Giant squid vs Creationism...... (Score:4, Funny)

    by joppabukowski ( 844481 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @05:10AM (#14587128)
    This reminded me of a funny article from an old comedy/magizine site called Penis Owners Club, which is no longer updated. I'll paste it here, since the site probably isn't very work safe. =)

    "The world was not created for man by God, oh no!

    For some years, some biologists have argued that there was a 7th day of creation, during which God thought about his prototypes and finally made the crowning glory of his creation here on Earth: the giant squid.

    The basic problem with the idea that we humans are the peak of his creation was pointed out by none other than Charles Darwin. The problem is explaining the evolution of the vertebrate eye. He gave this as a very serious problem, because this organ doesn't fossilize at all, and it is difficult to explain how all the intermediate forms could have been sufficiently functional for Natural Selection to have selected them.

    In recent years, Creationists have vociferously challenged the entire evolutionary paradigm, and some biologists have given serious thought to their criticisms, as well as Darwin's issue of the eye. Some have suggested the thought experiment: Suppose that the Creationists are right, and the world was built by some sort of Cosmic Engineer (which we may call "God" for short). What can we learn by studying the artefacts of the creation process?

    One thing that we learn when we study the vertebrate eye is that it has a rather strange structure. The blood vessels and the nerves pass through the surface in a bundle (the "blind spot"), and spread out on the inside of the retina. This is a very bizarre way to lay out the "wiring". Why would any sensible engineer do it this way, rather than the much more sensible way of running the wiring along the back surface?

    We might hypothesize that there is some obscure benefit to doing it this way, and we just aren't clever enough to figure it out. But this is shot down by a simple fact. The "camera" type of eye seems to have evolved (or been created, if you prefer) more than once. The cephalopods (a family of animals that include octopi, squid, and nautilus) have eyes that are superficially similar, but on close examination, we find that all the details are different. In particular, they have the "wiring" on the back of the retina, as you'd expect.

    So, if there is a Creator, He seems to have done the job twice, once poorly (with vertebrates), and once well (with the cephalopods). This is very suspicious. It is especially suspicious when you consider that, while we humans claim that the planet was built for us, it is roughly 3/4 salt water. If you measure the areas that we humans actually inhabit in any significant numbers, we are talking about maybe 5% of the globe, whereas the giant squid is at the top of the food chain over roughly 70%. When you consider the actual volume of the inhabited space, the giant squid has a home range many thousands of times greater than ours.

    So the evidence appears to be that humans were one of the experiments, good enough to let live but not good enough to be given a large range (or to rework things like the eyes so that they worked better).

    If this isn't convincing enough, consider also that humans have quite a good record of wiping out all the large predators, on both land and at sea. We have devastated the cetacea and are busy wiping out the large sharks, tunas, and other major marine predators. There is one exception: Humans show little interest in interacting with the giant squid. Sure, we catch the little ones and eat them, but as for the biggest species, we almost totally ignore it, although it is a major predator in all the oceans. And if you are like most humans, you are probably thinking that this is silly. Who cares about a bunch of big squid?

    This is very, very suspicious. We have a glaring blind spot here. Most large predators drive us crazy. We are terrified of wolves, bears, and sharks. Although very few humans have ever been injured b

  • ...sightings of glowing red orbs that crashed into the deep ocean? That sea level rise might not be global warming after all....
  • From TFA: "No one knows what caused the octopus to attack. It may have been curious, looking for a meal or a girlfriend, said Jim Cosgrove of the Royal B.C. Museum."

    I didn't know that Slashdot had Octopodal readers
  • It may have been curious, looking for a meal or a girlfriend, said Jim Cosgrove of the Royal B.C. Museum.

    Funny, my girlfriend attacks my expensive and sensitive equipment when I'm on too long.

    And like that sub, it's not insured either!

    Are we seeing an interspecies relationship here?

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