Rachael Talibart's breathtaking "Sirens" photo series pareidolically reveals the fantastic mythical beasts hidden in the ocean waves. From Tailbart's
gallery page at the Sony World Photography Awards in which she was shortlisted:
‘Sirens’ is an ongoing portfolio of storm waves captured on the UK’s south coast. A childhood afloat and a love of maritime mythology have come together in these portraits of monstrous waves named after mythological creatures. These images are from 2017 and were captured at Newhaven, in East Sussex, but the photographs are intended to transcend time and place. Thus, in naming them, I have shamelessly plundered myths and legends from all cultures and eras. On the days I make these photographs, the sea is beautiful but also terrifying. I feel utterly insignificant, yet completely enriched by these encounters with wildness, and that is what I have tried to communicate in the photographs.
Above, "Loki." Below, "Poseidon Rising" and "Nanook."
See more: Rachael Talibart "Sirens"
(via PetaPixel)
Read the rest
According to the excellent wunderkammer of Twitter accounts, We Like To Learn, "Throughout history, sailors have mistaken Beluga Wales for mermaids because of their human-like knees."
(As our helpful commenters point out, those aren't literally "knees" in the image but rather love handles that help the whales steer as they swim. More here.)
(via Daily Grail) Read the rest
The way this man casually hops on to a moving freighter in Hailuoto, Finland as it tears through ice and sub-zero waters should make anyone who sees this video feel a whole lot better about their morning commute. Read the rest
Andrew Hill was stand-up paddleboarding off Gracetown, Western Australia when a pod of dolphins interrupted his fun.
“Eight or nine of them decided to catch that wave and surf straight at me, which has happened lots of times in the past to me and generally they just take off to one side left or right,” Hill told PerthNow. “It's good to see dolphins. Surfers like seeing dolphins, but obviously I'd prefer them to stay a little bit further away than they did yesterday.”
I'm sure they'd prefer the same of Mr. Hill.
Read the rest
For more than fifty years, scientists have known that the Earth hums. We can't hear the sound as it's at a frequency 10,000 times lower than our hearing threshold but new research suggests that it's coming from the ocean floor. Scientists from the Paris Institute of Global Physics analyzed data from earthquake sensors on the Indian Ocean floor and found the familiar and constant oscillations of between 2.9 and 4.5 millihertz. From National Geographic:
"To better understand where the signal comes from, we believe that observing oscillations from the ocean bottom can help," says co-author Martha Deen...
Since early observations, a number of studies have hypothesized that the Earth's free oscillations are a side-effect of the pounding of ocean waves. Other research suggests the hum could originate from atmospheric turbulence, or the wind motions around the globe, cued by storms. The current study says turbulence could account for part of the vibration, leading the rest to be fueled by ocean waves...
By studying the Earth's hum signal from ocean-bottom stations, scientists can map out a detailed landscape of the Earth's interior. Currently, they can only look at the inside of the planet during earthquakes, which limits studies to certain times and areas. And when looking at seismic activity from land monitors, researchers can't chart places far removed from islands and land masses. But the hum signal, droning and constant, can be detected across the world.
Read the rest
A fantastic behind-the-scenes clip from Blue Planet II:
The Blue Planet II team dive to over 700 meters to see what happens to a whale carcass on the seabed. Whilst filming sharks as they feast, the sharks start to take a worrying interest in the submarine!
Read the rest
Watch these swimmers on Hahei Beach, New Zealand flee from a killer whale, aka an orca, last weekend. "You guys are idiots," says the cameraperson. Killer whales don't attack people in the wild. From the New Zealand Herald:
"They came in very close, about 10 metres from shore," (said Gary Hinds, chairman of the Hot Water Beach Lifeguard.)
It's a sight locals see about once to twice a season.
"They come in to feed on stingrays and stuff like that," Mr Hinds said.
"Some people don't see them, but the ones who do are in awe of seeing these orcas so close into the shore."
Surf lifesavers kept an eye on the situation to ensure people kept a safe distance and didn't get into trouble going out to look.
Read the rest
Scuba Diving magazine announced the winners of its underwater photography contest and the results are an awe-inspiring glimpse of another world that exists within our own. Above, Kevin Richter's magnificent photo of an octopus in Lembeh Strait, Indonesia, took first place in the compact camera category. Below: Rodney Bursiel took first prize in the wide angle category for this shot of a whale calf breaching in Tavarua, Fiji; Eduardo Acevedo's image of this ribbon eel in Lembeh Strait, Indonesia won second place for macro photography.
See the rest at Scuba Diving Magazine.
Read the rest
In collaboration with Hans Zimmer, Radiohead reworked their track "Bloom" from The King of Limbs into an epic orchestral number that seems just perfect for its intended use, in the soundtrack for Sir David Attenborough's new BBC documentary Blue Planet II. According to Thom Yorke, "Bloom" was originally inspired by the first Blue Planet series in 2001.
"It sort of seeped into my subconscious. I found myself dreaming of these creatures quite a lot," Yorke says in the below behind-the-scenes clip about the making of the new track.
Read the rest
From JeffHK, 80,000 photos over 30 days:
Route was from Red Sea -- Gulf of Aden -- Indian Ocean -- Colombo -- Malacca Strait -- Singapore -- South East China Sea -- Hong Kong
Read the rest
Fishermen in the North Sea near the Nethelands caught the first two-headed porpoises ever documented. The trawler crew found the animal already dead in its nets. From Deinsea, the journal of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam:
"The crew of the fishing vessel thought it would be illegal to keep the dead porpoise and they threw the specimen back into the sea. Fortunately, first a series of photographs was taken. The specimen, however, is lost for science and natural history."
"The first case of conjoined twin harbour porpoises Phocoena phocoena (Mammalia, Cetacea)" (Deinsea via Mysterious Universe)
Read the rest
Acidic solutions can help neutralize the toxins from a jellyfish sting so why shouldn't you try to piss the pain away? (Reactions)
Read the rest
An announcement from a police helicopter on Wednesday near Capistrano Beach, California:
"You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks. They are advising you exit the water in a calm manner. The sharks are as close as the surfline.” From the OC Register:
Read the rest
SEE UPDATE BELOW
This mysteriously "tattooed" fish was caught near Lopez Jaena in the Misamis Occidental province of the Philippines. Some locals considered the fish a warning from the depths. They're actually right, as the likely non-magical explanation is that the fish was caught in a printed plastic bag floating in the ocean and the pattern transferred to the animal's scales over time. (Mysterious Universe)
UPDATE:
According to ABS-CBN, "Zosimo Tano who caught the fish, clarified... that the print on the fish's body came from his shirt, which he used to cover the fish."
(Thanks, Teddy-Bob_Silas!)
Read the rest
The filmmaker was diving off Gansbaai, Western Cape, South Africa.
Read the rest
The amazing suckers on octopus arms aren't just for sucking. They also are used to smell and taste. To deal with all that sensory input, the vast majority of an octopus's brain cells are in its eight arms!
“It’s more efficient to put the nervous cells in the arm,” neurobiologist Binyamin Hochner, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told KQED's Deep Look. “The arm is a brain of its own.”
Read the rest
Scientists declared the ruby seadragon a new species in 2015, but that was based on dead specimens in a museum. Now though, Scripps Institution of Oceanography biologist Greg Rouse who led the team that originally discovered the species, managed to find two of the wonderful fish swimming around the Recherche Archipelago, off the south coast of Western Australia. Each one is about 10 feet long. Just kidding. They're 10 inches long. From National Geographic:
After four dives with a remote-controlled mini-submarine, they managed to film two ruby seadragons more than 167 feet underwater, as the fish swam through rocky gardens of sponges and nibbled at their prey, most likely tiny crustaceans called mysids...
...The footage confirms that ruby seadragons use a different means of camouflage than its closest relatives. Common and leafy seadragons are covered in leafy outgrowths meant to camouflage the fish as they swim through seagrasses. The ruby seadragon, however, lacks them—opting instead for a scarlet body, an efficient way to disguise itself from predators in the dark depths.
Most surprisingly, the video suggests that the ruby seadragon can use its curled tail to grasp objects.
Read the rest
