Oceanographers Mapping Underwater Mountain Find Flying Spaghetti Monster (cnn.com) 63
Though the ocean covers about 70% of earth, we humans have only mapped a quarter of its floor to a high resolution, reports CNN.
Many of the world's highest mountains aren't visible on land — they rise up thousands of meters from the seafloor. An expedition to the Nazca Ridge, 900 miles off the coast of Chile, has mapped and explored a newly discovered seamount four times taller than the world's tallest building. What's more, the underwater mountain's peaks, crags and ridges are home to coral gardens that host rare deep-dwelling octopuses, squids and creatures known as flying spaghetti monsters, some of which hadn't been well documented before this research.
The undersea mountain is 1.9 miles (3,109 meters) tall, according to another article, which notes that the researchers also used a sonar system to bounce waves to the ocean floor, timing how long they took to reach the surface: The researchers documented a ghostly white Casper octopus, marking the first time this deep-dwelling cephalopod has been seen in the southern Pacific. They also spotted two rare Bathyphysa siphonophores, sometimes known as flying spaghetti monsters for their stringlike appearance. "The (Casper) octopus has never been captured, so it doesn't actually have a scientific name yet," Virmani said. The team also recorded the first footage of a live Promachoteuthis squid, known only from a few collected specimens.
The undersea mountain is 1.9 miles (3,109 meters) tall, according to another article, which notes that the researchers also used a sonar system to bounce waves to the ocean floor, timing how long they took to reach the surface: The researchers documented a ghostly white Casper octopus, marking the first time this deep-dwelling cephalopod has been seen in the southern Pacific. They also spotted two rare Bathyphysa siphonophores, sometimes known as flying spaghetti monsters for their stringlike appearance. "The (Casper) octopus has never been captured, so it doesn't actually have a scientific name yet," Virmani said. The team also recorded the first footage of a live Promachoteuthis squid, known only from a few collected specimens.
Let me be the first to say: (Score:1)
How noodly!
Always in awe of well reasoned arguments (Score:2)
Need the climatic impact study from this research (Score:2)
Generally in favor of this type of research, though all of these expeditions should have to pass the same government climate impact study that any mining, oil drilling, etc. operation should have to.
It would help prioritize science research as well as prioritize natural resource extraction industry projects.
Consider, hypothetically, if we could trigger a volcanic eruption for scientific research, how would we quantify or regulate the large amount of pollution that eruption would produce?
Re:Let me be the first to say: (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh? As opposed to the Judeo-Christian God who put a talking snake in a garden and told a women, no less, not to eat the fruit of a particular tree, razed Sodom and Gomorrah including all the innocent people therein, turned a wife into a pillar of salt, buried dinosaur bones and aged them to mask making the world 6000 years ago? Then he had a Son who was murdered by the Romans who somehow were able to pass it off on the Jews, promulgated the Inquisition killing untold thousands. And who now has adherents promising the Son-O-God is a'coming any day now, just as they have just about every century for 2000 years since he failed to show up after promising he would. A God who made one statement we know about casting ill-will upon gay love and in the next phrase demands no one is to wear garments made of two different fibers, and guess which statement the Christian Taliban seem to recall.
This same God appears unconcerned about centuries of warfare in his name and seems content that the human race cooking itself off the only planet they can get to. And he seem perfectly content with people killing one another in his name because somehow he is such a weenie he cannot defend himself. And just to make matters worse, he's terrible with money seeing as his spokesbots always seem to be asking for it in tailored suits and expensive lifestyles.
One wonders what he does all day besides counting clouds.
Re: Let me be the first to say: (Score:3)
Risking being Islamaphobic, Islamic god is no better or more plausible than the Judeo-Christian one.
Flying Spaghetti Monster is the only one who makes sense. R'amen!
Re: (Score:3)
Also, The Satanic Temple have some worthy tenets: https://thesatanictemple.com/b... [thesatanictemple.com]
Re: Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
All three are the same abrahamic god.
Re: Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You have to be patient with the theists. They are still stuck in the mental development stage where small kids believe fairy-tales. Some of them eventually grow up to become atheists. Most never mange that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, if you can accept deterministic actions as free will, then you can have free will.
Alternatively if the basic reason you do things is totally random fluctuations, and that's what you mean by "free will", then you can have free will.
Either of those positions are defensible. I can't tell, however, what *you* mean by "free will". Newton and classical mechanics favor the first possibility. Quantum theory favors the second. (The problem is that recently it's been proven that entanglement is definitely k
Re: (Score:1)
Ah, you are one of the Physicalist idiots that have not noticed that their stance is _belief_, not Science. Pretty similar to the theists, actually.
Re: (Score:3)
That's NOT a definition. I still don't know your definition of "free will".
I offered two defensible choices, but didn't require that you accept either of them, I asked for YOUR definition. You could have picked one of the ones I offered if it seemed what you meant, but instead of either accepting one of them, or offering a different choice, you just replied with an insult.
Re: (Score:1)
That is because you are an idiot and deep in quasi-religious delusion. There is no _need_ for a "definition" of free will. In fact, there cannot be one. Free will is an _observation_. People like you think you can "define" reality. That is very much not the case. For reality, the thing that matters is an "explanation" and it is optional and never absolute.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Observed phenomena do not have to make sense to be valid. Also remember that things not making sense is, in this case, due to a limitation on your side.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Now I am hungry ... :-(
Re: Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
Maybe it really doesn't... to someone who believes that an almighty god begets a son and sends him as his avatar to be tortured and killed on a cross only to "save" the mankind... instead of simply using his almightyness to wave a finger to "save" the mankind.
Religion contradicts Occam's razor. To me at least, it's a sure sign that religion is wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
If they found the Flying (Swimming?) Spaghetti Monster, it's only because it suited his inscrutable purposes. He probably wants to increase the number of pirates to combat global warming.
Re: Let me be the first to say: (Score:2)
but can it fly?
They disturbed His Noodliness (Score:2)
Fear His wrath!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:They disturbed His Noodliness (Score:5, Funny)
Fear His wrath!
Wrath? As a Pastafarian, I take exception to that. My deity is kind, compassionate, non-judgmental, and has a sense of humour. My deity also values meatballs, so I am doubly blessed in His presence...
Re: (Score:1)
Vegetarian meatballs, or does your god not extend kindness to the anomals slaughtered for your gustatory pleasure?
Re: (Score:3)
Vegetarian meatballs, or does your god not extend kindness to the anomals slaughtered for your gustatory pleasure?
You're confusing the spaghetti monster with the spaghetti devil you vegetarian satanist!.
Re: (Score:3)
Unfortunately His sense of humor includes mixing ghost peppers into the meatballs; therein lies the wrath.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: They disturbed His Noodliness (Score:2)
No pasta for them!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If it has a 2-mile prominence then it's equivalent to about the 25th tallest mountain on Earth:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
That's still a relative measure but more informative.
What is it with this obsession of comparing things (Score:2)
to ridiculous other things?
a newly discovered seamount four times taller than the world's tallest building
We measure heights in Burj Khalifas now?
I mean I sort of get that masses are compared to a number of cars: people have cars and they have an instinctive understanding of how heavy a car is. Same thing for distances in football pitches I guess.
The analogy starts to suck with Libraries of Congress, because let's face it: nobody goes to the Library of Congress. Nobody has a feel of how large a unit of Library of Congress is. But I guess that one is historical.
But Burj Khalifas? Since
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't ranting about metric units but about meaningless - and pointless - comparisons.
As for the FSM, it is a symbol of rational thinking over nonsensical beliefs, so I don't really see a contradiction with the metric system here. Not that customary units are a belief, but they most definitely are nonsense in this day and age.
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't know the size of the world's tallest building that is on you. I honestly don't know it either but I can imagine something that is four times taller than anything humans have built. Actual size doesn't matter here just the relationship (you dirty people can insert your joke here).
Re: What is it with this obsession of comparing th (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think they are afraid of getting criticized if they expect people to understand numbers. Idiocracy, here we come!
What's a supposedly-benevolent diety doing ... (Score:1)
... with a hidden undersea lair?
Mountains [fandom.com] I [theoi.com] get [wikipedia.org], but hidden undersea? Come on, Your Pastaness, you don't want people to think you are evil [tvtropes.org], do you?
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously hunting Cthulhu.
Re: (Score:2)
Out of curiosity I had to look the thing up to see what it looked like, and I do think it's misnamed. It resembles Cthulhu much more than it does the FSM.
https://www.newscientist.com/a... [newscientist.com]
Bolognase or Ragu? (Score:1)
Gotta know which sauce to cook him in.
The End is Nigh. (Score:4, Informative)
Repent! All you sinners! All you disbelievers! Repent before your soul is cast off into the depths of the spaghetti sauce bowl.
Re: (Score:2)
Turn from your false image of the FSM .. or else you must feel the wrath of our merciful and benevolent FSM.
I lost my poor meatball.. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why do they have to capture the poor creatures? (Score:1)
Why not observe without interfering? How can knowledge be used as an excuse for violating another's right to be left alone?
Re: (Score:3)
They haven't captured it: that's the point But they can't give it a formal name until they do because contemporary biological taxonomy requires a type specimen. The name is effectively defined as referring to "the species of which this museum exhibit is an individual".
Oh the irony! (Score:2)
Turns out Pastafarianism is the only religion with a basis in reality.
Discovery (Score:2)