[HN Gopher] Thousands of octopuses gather off California to broo...
___________________________________________________________________
Thousands of octopuses gather off California to brood eggs at a
warm spot
Author : gmays
Score : 151 points
Date : 2023-09-01 13:36 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| prpl wrote:
| We would be warm, below the storm, in our little hideaway beneath
| the waves
| EMCymatics wrote:
| Kracken City.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Take me down to the Kracken city
|
| Where the seagrass's green and the girls are eight-armed.
|
| </GnR>
| deedree wrote:
| I can't decide if you knew it was a reference to the Beatles
| Octopus's Garden and tried to be even wittier or not.
|
| For me it was instant recognition, I was rather surprised
| that lived in my subconsciousness.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| This is likely the site of the vigilant octomom from 2007, who
| was observed by researchers to have guarded her eggs for over
| four years:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.15646
| iscrewyou wrote:
| Radiolab did a test episode on this. It's fascinating!!
|
| https://radiolab.org/podcast/octomom
| jiofj wrote:
| Let me take this opportunity to recommend this recipe from my
| country - https://www.thespruceeats.com/galician-style-octopus-
| recipe-...
| ajmurmann wrote:
| IMO, octopus are too smart to be eaten ethically.
| soperj wrote:
| Mushrooms could be the most intelligent organism on earth.
| stOneskull wrote:
| fungus in general
|
| like how the ground fungus communicates through earth, the
| invisible flying fungus might have a wifi-type system.. 'we
| found bread!'
| hinkley wrote:
| I love Suzanne Simard but I strongly believe she has
| mistaken osmotic pressure for intention in some of her
| work.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| I'm leaning in agreement with you. Squid also reproduce a lot
| faster than octopus (market squid lifespan is 9 months and
| they die after reproduction) so I recommend folks save their
| cephalopod recipes for squid.
| soperj wrote:
| Some octopuses only live for 6 months.
| hinkley wrote:
| Like eating your border collie.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Can people with mental disabilities be eaten ethically?
|
| Follow up question since I can guess your answer: what about
| mentally disabled chimpanzees? What about mentally disabled
| octopuswhiches[0]? I'm talking to the point where they would
| not survive outside of human intervention. Or maybe not.
| Where is the line?
|
| [0] as defined as the plural of octopus elsewhere in the
| comments
| palmer_fox wrote:
| There are many lines. Some lines are drawn by the law,
| other lines are drawn by the society we live in and/or our
| individual ethical norms.
|
| If we have collectively decided that intelligence is a
| factor when deciding whether an animal can be eaten by
| humans, then it's a perfectly logical conclusion for many
| people that eating octopuses is disgraceful.
| rjtavares wrote:
| Since we're recommending recipes, here's one from my country -
| https://www.authenticfoodquest.com/polvo-a-lagareiro-recipe-...
|
| Cheers neighbour!
| [deleted]
| dunefox wrote:
| Absolutely reprehensible.
| borski wrote:
| Yes, how dare a culture eat an animal, making delicious
| cuisine. What villainy. Who would ever think to stoop to
| cooking and eating something that lives in the ocean?!
| Timon3 wrote:
| I take it you wouldn't have an issue with eating other
| people if they lived in the ocean?
| borski wrote:
| It has nothing to do with the fact that they live in the
| ocean. We are omnivores, not herbivores. If there were no
| other animals around to eat, then yes, I'm certain
| various populations of people would resort to cannibalism
| and have in the past.
|
| They are not "savages," just different.
|
| We've eaten meat, of land, sea, and air, for far longer
| than anyone has tried to convince anyone else they should
| be vegan. That's all I'm saying.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| We've also as a collective re-evaluated our values over
| time, reducing our overall cruelty and savagery as we
| realized its extent. There's nothing wrong with that
| either, and your original comment did not adequately
| recognize that this is where the sentiment comes from.
| borski wrote:
| Please check yourself here; who is "we"? Clearly the
| Portuguese and Spanish still love their pulpo, so we as a
| "collective" of _humans_ have apparently not collectively
| re-evaluated our values over time, deciding that eating
| meat is cruel and savage.
|
| _You_ have, and that's completely okay.
|
| But to unilaterally call a culture's cuisine "absolutely
| reprehensible," is, in my opinion, the actually
| reprehensible act.
|
| In particular, calling someone's cuisine (or really
| almost anything else) "absolutely reprehensible" is a
| great, surefire way to not convince anyone your point has
| merit.
|
| To be ultra clear: I have no issues with vegetarians,
| vegans, or anyone else. My issue is with people who have
| issue with those who have different beliefs or ways of
| life, labeling those people as "absolutely
| reprehensible."
|
| That, in essence, is my issue with the original comment.
| decremental wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| callalex wrote:
| I agree.
| j-wags wrote:
| I learned recently that the pluralization of "octopus" is a
| linguistics rabbit hole. While most people would reach for
| "octopuses" or "octopi", the strictly correctest pluralization
| would be "octopodes" (last syllable rhyming with "these"), since
| the word is from ancient greek. [1]
|
| I first heard this on a linguistics podcast called "Talk the
| Talk"[2] (now superseded by "Because Language"[3]). The hosts go
| on to clarify that language evolves over time and is most
| importantly defined by what people actually use, so there's
| nothing wrong with modern English deviating from the ancient
| greek pluralization.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Etymology_and_pluralis...
| [2] https://talkthetalkpodcast.com/ [3]
| https://becauselanguage.com/
| arcticbull wrote:
| It is my understanding that 'octopuses' is the strictly correct
| option because it matches a greek root word with an English
| suffix and we are speaking English after all. Dictionaries seem
| to agree.
|
| Octopodes is acceptable in some contexts because it matches a
| greek root word with a greek suffix. Octopi is just wrong
| because it applies a latin suffix to a greek root.
|
| This came up notably a few years ago as the winning answer to a
| high-stakes HQ Trivia game. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/arts/hq-trivia-app-
| appoin...
| remarkEon wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree.
|
| If we were speaking Latin, would "Octopi" still be wrong?
| Given the logic used to claim that Octopuses is the correct
| pluralization, I don't see how it could be.
|
| Thus, I'm left to conclude that Octopodes is the only correct
| form since it lacks this spoken language dependency.
| suzakus wrote:
| Yes, octopi is wrong in latin. Octopus is conjugated as
| Octopodi in the plural. See:
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octopus#Latin
| fishtockos wrote:
| See my sibling comment - where does the insistence that
| octopus is third declension come from? The reality is
| that while most Greek loanwords are third declension,
| many are not, and Latin authors tended to not be
| consistent.
| soperj wrote:
| I feel like we should settle it with something that nobody
| agrees on. Octopuswiches.
| extrememacaroni wrote:
| Octii
| satori99 wrote:
| Or perhaps Octopussies?
| googlryas wrote:
| There is no such way to define strictly correct through logic
| alone in English. It's really just whatever people say.
|
| After all, we have a ton of words that mix latin and greek
| roots/-fixes. Eg bioluminescence, bigamy, homophobic, etc.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| My understanding is that all variations are generally
| acceptable and no one cares all that much:
|
| * octopodes
|
| * octopi
|
| * octopuses
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > no one cares
|
| My elementary school teachers sure did. And they insisted
| that it was "octopi".
| FrankoDelMar wrote:
| Excuse me if this may sounds harsh or uncharitable, but my
| experience with American elementary school teachers has led
| me to believe that many, if not most, elementary school
| teachers are generally rigid in their way of teaching (my
| way is the right way, there is no other way), and refuse to
| address nuance, perhaps from their own ignorance, their
| patronization of children, or both. While we absolutely
| need and should support high quality elementary school
| teachers, the assumption I've developed is that most
| elementary school teachers are highly juvenile themselves,
| and are there partially due to their own lack of executive
| functioning, considering that elementary school is more
| similar to a day care than an actual educational facility.
|
| I recall talking to an elementary school teacher who
| insisted that the only way to comprehend whether a number
| was even was to determine if the least significant digit
| was 0 or 2 and I was met with hostility when I mentioned
| that while that may be easier for the child to understand
| within a base-10 world, if even the educator can't
| understand why an even number is more accurately described
| as a number which when divided by 2 has a remainder of 0
| then I should be very concerned about the state of
| education.
| actuallyalys wrote:
| It's possible. I suspect it may partly be that stories
| about elementary teachers being stubbornly wrong are more
| interesting than stories of them being stubbornly right
| or being open minded.
| Clamchop wrote:
| I haven't heard about much besides perhaps even stronger
| rigidity from other places so we might not be especially
| bad and I've only heard of softening in the US lately.
|
| But spending too much time on nuance may be especially
| counterproductive with younger children. I'm not sure
| about that but it's a reasonable hypothesis.
| dekhn wrote:
| To boldly go.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| I think you are correct on the first point, but judging by
| the other comments here (and any time this subject crops up),
| you are apparently wrong on the second. :P
| fortran77 wrote:
| No. Octopi is just wrong, has no justification, and is based
| on ignorance.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Tell my 2nd grade teacher.
| fishtockos wrote:
| No. You seem very confident, but octopi is (grammatically)
| perfectly acceptable. The English word octopus is taken
| from the Latin (coined by Linnaeus) word octopus, which is
| of Greek origin. Greek loanwords in Latin were used very
| inconsistently, but many people on the internet seem to
| believe that it MUST be a third declension noun. However,
| Pliny treats the structurally identical polypus as second
| declension and uses the plural polypi (see https://www.pers
| eus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+9&f...).
| srcreigh wrote:
| Its Engl-ish. Emphasis on the -ish.
|
| They're all fine.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Octopux.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Yeah, I think that battle was lost a long time ago, and in the
| scheme of things it wasn't not a big loss. Octopuses is more
| consistent with how English speakers pluralize, plus it's
| waaaay more fun to say.
| datastoat wrote:
| As an Australian I'm used to hearing "antipodean" and sometimes
| "antipodes", so "octopodes" sits well!
| [deleted]
| capableweb wrote:
| > the largest congregation of deep-sea octopuses ever discovered
| on Earth, where over 6,000 octopuses huddle around an extinct
| underwater volcano in the black, cold ocean depths, almost two
| miles below the surface.
|
| I'm 99% sure the number 6000 is an estimation, and in that case,
| how would you start to estimate such number? Divide the area into
| a grid of N cells, count all of them in one cell and then apply
| to the entire area? Seems they would be many clusters so the
| number would be very unreliable.
| whalesalad wrote:
| is this a FAANG interview?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pvg wrote:
| Sampling is a standard technique that produces good results
| keneda7 wrote:
| The current top comment links to this video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEXUOPkQPo8
|
| The 6000 is what they counted in one area.
|
| They estimate 20000 total.
|
| Skip to 1:50 for the part they talk about the counts.
| capableweb wrote:
| Exactly what I was looking for, thanks :)
| kristopolous wrote:
| MBARIs video on this is the thing to watch
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zEXUOPkQPo8
|
| It's worth the click, they're the group doing the research here.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| Wow -- great video. Interesting how you can tell the narrator
| is involved in the project and really cares versus some paid
| voice actor reading a script.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Should this be covered so publicly by media outlets with no
| protections in place for the animals? At least don't give out the
| approximate location that easily. I'm pretty sure someone going
| to show up to the spot with a net.
| [deleted]
| linuxftw wrote:
| It's 2 miles below the surface. They'll be perfectly fine.
| shimmeringleaf wrote:
| The part of them being "almost two miles below the surface"
| might be one of the reasons they mention it so brazenly,
| totally in agreement with you, but someone at two miles depth
| with a net is probably unlikely here.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| >Brood times for nesting females there seemed to be about 1.8
| years, while previous observations of a deep-sea octopus in cold
| water showed that it took 4.5 years for its eggs to hatch, a
| length of time longer than any other animal.
|
| This is just mind boggling. And during that time the females
| aren't feeding?!
| [deleted]
| civilitty wrote:
| The mothers die after the eggs hatch to provide food for the
| babies. It's similar to bears overeating before hibernation,
| except they do it to prepare for sexual maturity.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| For those like feeling deja vu, there was _some_ discussion 10
| days ago, but _NOT_ above HN 's general "significant discussion"
| threshold:
|
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37268852>
|
| (Based on NY Times coverage.)
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Atop an Underwater Hot Spring, an 'Octopus Garden' Thrives_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37268852 - Aug 2023 (10
| comments)
|
| _Watch Baby Octopuses Hatch from a Surprising Deep-Sea
| Nursery_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36600179 - July
| 2023 (54 comments)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Ah, I hadn't found the 2nd (despite trying a few different
| searches). Would have tripped my own dupe criteria if I had.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Thousands of octopodes, no?
| sandyarmstrong wrote:
| Octopuses is preferred.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Etymology_and_pluralis...
| hinkley wrote:
| You can pry octopi from my cold, dead hands.
| evanmoran wrote:
| I believe you mean tentacles.
| pvaldes wrote:
| [delayed]
| EMCymatics wrote:
| It has been a closely held belief of mine that we waste our time
| wondering about more intelligent life in the far reaches of space
| than right here on earth.
| [deleted]
| palmer_fox wrote:
| Treating animals as anything more than "pets" or "food" here on
| Earth would inevitably raise questions about animal rights,
| ethics of our handling of planet's resources, etc.
|
| We would rather eat live octopuses and pretend that finding
| life on other planets is more important than saving life on
| this one.
| nomel wrote:
| > Treating animals as anything more than "pets"
|
| To be fair, the eugenics experiment that is the "dog"
| significantly increased the species intelligence.
| nradov wrote:
| Are you claiming that domestic dogs are more intelligent
| than gray wolves?
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Obviously we should be doing both. How else are we ever going
| to taste the aliens?
| hinkley wrote:
| Some places are beginning to phase out cephalopods as food.
| We'll see how long it takes Japan to do so... They're still
| hunting whales.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I just visited Osaka. From what I saw I doubt anytime soon.
| feedsmgmt wrote:
| The recent UAPs with seemingly extremely advanced technology
| could just as easily be coming from within our own oceans as
| from outer space.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-01 23:01 UTC)