[HN Gopher] Plankton balloon to six times size in newly discover...
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       Plankton balloon to six times size in newly discovered mode of
       oceanic travel
        
       Author : wglb
       Score  : 78 points
       Date   : 2024-10-18 01:38 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | stevenjgarner wrote:
       | Supplementary Video 1:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gGNWxLYPhM
       | 
       | Supplementary Video 2:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPZe_UDtseM
        
       | sharpshadow wrote:
       | I guess I'm not alone thinking about UV ballooning my living
       | phytoplankton meal to six times the size for a voluminous meal.
        
         | adrian_b wrote:
         | When you make some kind of porridge by boiling either ground
         | cereal seeds (i.e. some kind of coarse cereal meal, e.g.
         | cornmeal or semolina) or whole cereal seeds (e.g. of rice or
         | wheat or barley), they will absorb a quantity of water of at
         | least four times the mass of the cereals. Therefore the cooked
         | food will be much more voluminous than the original cereals.
         | 
         | Both Pyrocystis noctiluca and the boiled cereal seeds increase
         | their volume many times by absorbing water, but Pyrocystis
         | noctiluca keeps the water in internal vacuoles, while in the
         | boiled seeds the water is incorporated in their starch
         | granules. All starchy seeds absorb water when boiled, but most
         | of them do not absorb so much water as the cereal seeds, so
         | their increase in volume is lower.
        
       | hammock wrote:
       | The aquatic version of inchworm-style mobility
        
       | bcatanzaro wrote:
       | This is amazing. Thanks for posting.
        
       | ars wrote:
       | I was was wondering what a plankton balloon is. Then I re-read
       | the garden path sentence, and figured out what they mean.
        
         | Terr_ wrote:
         | Joining in with the nerd-sniping, I propose adding a word like
         | "may" so that the user is already anticipating a verb rather
         | than a compound noun.
         | 
         | "Plankton [may] balloon to six times size in newly discovered
         | mode of oceanic travel"
        
       | Supermancho wrote:
       | Plankton, balloon to six time their size, in a newly discovered
       | mode of travel.
       | 
       |  _FTFY_
        
         | Terr_ wrote:
         | "Users named Supermacho, deposit commas in title, but 'fix' is
         | questionable."
         | 
         | Dividing the subject from the verb with a comma--even when the
         | upcoming verb could be confused with a noun--makes it like a
         | stilted old cost-conscious telegram where the STOP isn't being
         | spoken. Ex:
         | 
         | "Egrets, fish for most of their food, say biologists."
         | 
         | It can also create _new_ confusion, like this example of either
         | cramped living arrangements or an immediate television event:
         | 
         | "Florida couple, live in studio, with alligators."
         | 
         | _____
         | 
         | I'd rather prep the reader to anticipate a verb:
         | 
         | "Plankton [may] balloon to six times size in newly discovered
         | mode of oceanic travel"
        
       | deepfriedchokes wrote:
       | It's amazing something so simple in such a common organism took
       | so long to discover.
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-21 23:00 UTC)