Millions of Jellyfish Invade Nuclear Reactors 280
oxide7 writes "A nuclear reactor in Japan was forced to shut down due to infiltration of enormous swarms of jellyfish near the power plant. A similar incident was also reported recently in Israel, when millions of jellyfish clogged the sea-water cooling system of a power plant."
chinas program is an utter failure (Score:5, Insightful)
they have profoundly disrupted the balance between male and female, leading to social unrest and massive mental health problems.
the idea that there is insufficient land is bogus as long as we are paying farmers to not grow things. there is plenty of food, the problem is distribution and marketing. we throw away food every day from supermarkets and restaurants, and people go to jail if they try to dig in the trash for food to eat. there is no food shortage, there is a shortage of low-priced food, and that has nothing to do with the supply of land (except maybe as it relates to ethanol). it has to do with things like the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index Fund and other investment banks and hedge funds attempts to manipulate food markets for profit . . . something that is very old, a good 20th century example being the potato market and NYMEX.
the problem with 'population control' is that someone has to decide what 'sort of people' are 'better' - nobody who thinks they know the answer to that should ever be in any position of power because it is amongst the basest, most primitive and violent impulses of the human species, to 'wipe out the other clan'.
see also. eugenics. t4. genetic health courts. etc etc.
This is not flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this flamebait? What Tablizer says is true. The fish that are the normal predators of jellyfish have been overfished, along with a lot of the smaller fish they feed on. What results is an abundance of the food that jellyfish eat along with an absence of predators (including the human predator), which causes a surge in jellyfish numbers.
Re:chinas program is an utter failure (Score:5, Insightful)
You're exactly right, that we produce enough food to feed everyone. Inadequate packaging and storage, as well as inadequate distribution channels, corrupt governments, and plain old poverty keeps a lot of it getting to where it needs to go. Much of it spoils before reaching market and much of it gets used as a political and social weapon.
Just recently the UN FAO said we need to double our food output by 2050, when population is expected to reach 9 billion. Well, ignoring the fact that math doesn't make sense, it's missing the point. We can produce food for 6.5 billion right now. Production will need to increase to meet the demands of another 2.5 billion people, but the problem isn't production and never was. So long as there isn't enough refrigeration, pest-resistent procedures and packaging, and the roads and governments in place to distribute it adequately, production is irrelevant.
Re:US Navy vs Jellyfish (Score:4, Insightful)
What would a military be without some messes for the new recruits to clean up by hand?
Re:I think humans are the alien terraformers (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah - that could be a problem. But - historically speaking, how many times has China invaded another country? I think that we all recognize that China has a different psychology than much of the rest of the world. When I look at history, I see a lot of nations invading others for food, for wealth, for crazy religious reasons, and to satisfy a desire for conquest and blood lust. China? They have had 1/4 of the world's population for millenia, I guess. Back when the number of warm bodies on the field pretty much decided the battle, they could have expanded anywhere they wanted. But, they didn't.
What I think is more likely to happen is, a lot of young men are going to emmigrate from China. China is right now building something of a financial empire across the rest of Asia, Africa, and reaching into Europe and the Americas, along with Australia. It would be perfectly reasonable for China to export young men to those nations for business reasons. And, while they are out and about, they may find that the local women are rather attractive, with the added benefit that the local governments don't care to much about the number of children you have.
To tell the truth, I think I'd rather face a Chinese army . . .