[HN Gopher] Greenland sharks maintain vision for centuries throu...
___________________________________________________________________
Greenland sharks maintain vision for centuries through DNA repair
mechanism
Author : pseudolus
Score : 246 points
Date : 2026-01-06 12:44 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| chatmasta wrote:
| Sharks are so cool, man. They've just been chilling on the planet
| for 400 million years, swimming the oceans while epochs passed
| them by in their periphery. Their entire biology is pretty much
| unchanged. They've been sharks the whole time.
| zaken wrote:
| Sharks are older than trees
| colechristensen wrote:
| And the north star, Polaris, is a fraction the age of sharks
| at only 50-70 Mya (it's a trinary star system but the other
| two stars are much dimmer and not visible to the eye)
| echelon wrote:
| I love this fact.
|
| Also: life on earth is almost as old as the universe itself,
| within the same order of magnitude. 4.1 GYA (billion years
| ago) vs 13.8 GYA. We're old and intelligence is hard.
| baxtr wrote:
| I think there is a theory that we're not seeing any aliens
| simply because life on Earth started so early.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Or there are many planets with life, with each harboring
| their own equivalent to our sharks.
|
| (And none of those shark-equivalents have developed a
| space program.)
| baxtr wrote:
| That would be unfortunate.
|
| I'd love to see some space sharks!
| ssl-3 wrote:
| We'd almost certainly find some way to kill them if we
| ever ran across any of them.
|
| We're pretty good at accomplishing things like that.
|
| One day, there's some space sharks swimming in a sea of
| liquid helium and doing deep dives to get to the smaller
| creatures that devour the seabed of diamonds.
|
| The next day, we're figuring out how to use space shark
| squeezings in our fusion reactors.
|
| Unless, of course, the space sharks figure out how to
| kill us first. They will probably try if that's useful to
| then.
|
| It's the circle of life.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We 'd almost certainly find some way to kill them if
| we ever ran across any of them_
|
| There is a credible argument that what the literature
| terms genocidal tendencies--where conflict isn't resolved
| when it ends, but when the enemy is destroyed--is a
| precondition for conquering a world. So if we met space
| sharks, barring enlightenment, they'd probably seek to
| destroy us, too.
| computerex wrote:
| There is life, then intelligent life like humans. Plus
| you have physical constraints like the speed of light.
| alex1138 wrote:
| I would love a "chatty" universe like Mass Effect but the
| problem is we'd probably be fighting Reapers
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Light is slower in water. I think that explains why we
| are still waiting
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I think this is clearer:
|
| Since we're not seeing any aliens, life on Earth must
| have started very early.
| simmerup wrote:
| It's more inaccurate as it's stating an assumption as
| fact
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Yes I love it too, wish more people appreciated it
| yread wrote:
| That's not that early, no? There was probably enough C, H,
| N, O, P, S, Na atoms for life to start 10B years ago. You
| probably couldnt rely on iron being everywhere though but
| that's not such a hard requirement.
| echelon wrote:
| It's fascinating to ponder, for sure.
|
| The universe still has plenty of time to burn, especially
| red dwarfs. It's sad to think about starless skies,
| though.
|
| The heme is pretty magical. Probably not a hard
| requirement, but it sure has been useful for us here.
| gusgus01 wrote:
| Another Fun Fact: the Appalachian mountains formed before
| sharks existed, the rings of Saturn existed, and before bones
| existed.
| sethammons wrote:
| I think you misstated your fun fact
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| ...but younger than the mountains. There you go!
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| ICYMI: https://youtu.be/IUmnTfsY3hI?si=WuUcwv_LLYh8gX4u
|
| Good call, abc123
| nine_k wrote:
| They've found a local optimum, and stay in it. There's no easy
| way out anyway.
| echelon wrote:
| > There's no easy way out anyway.
|
| Evolution always finds new nooks and crannies of state space
| to explore.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndbw7SQMCcQ
| odyssey7 wrote:
| Yes, but maybe not from one specific lineage. E.g.,
| extinction really is the end of the line for some species.
| maxbond wrote:
| Not always, species go extinct all the time. Evolution can
| get stuck in local optima. Consider the whiptail lizard,
| which has lost the ability to reproduce sexually. Will they
| be able to adapt to future changes of the environment?
| Maybe, but the chips are stacked against them.
| yetihehe wrote:
| No one said that those nooks are not deadly. But
| evolution will explore them just in case.
| computerex wrote:
| Evolution doesn't explore anything, mutations are random,
| selection pressure causes beneficial traits to become
| more common overtime.
| yetihehe wrote:
| Yes, but those mutations are part of why evolution works.
| Through random mutations, every possible way of doing
| something is explored. If something is beneficial,
| organisms thrive. If it's not beneficial, organisms
| _die_. The same is for whole species. If a species was
| using some niche to their advantage and the niche
| disappeared, the species will die. But that niche (nook)
| was explored.
| esafak wrote:
| That's what exploration looks like; mutation plus
| selection. I think you know this but consider exploration
| willful, perhaps?
| RaftPeople wrote:
| > _mutations are random_
|
| Kind of. Mutation rate of our dna is "managed" by the
| dna/chromosomes/genes to reduce the rate in critical
| areas.
| kruuuder wrote:
| Wow what an interesting animal, haven't heard about it
| before.
|
| > the chips are stacked against them.
|
| Wikipedia says: "This reproductive method enables the
| asexual desert grassland whiptail lizard to have a
| genetic diversity previously thought to have been unique
| to sexually reproductive species."
|
| Doesn't look to bad?
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| Sounds like working for government.
| barrenko wrote:
| > queue the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club song
| Fnoord wrote:
| When they lose a tooth, they just grow a new one. How
| conveniently _cool_!
| starkeeper wrote:
| This is so messed up harvesting the eye from a creature that
| lives hundreds of years. I guess they put the shark down. RIP one
| eye.
| dlahoda wrote:
| is future possible cure for humans worth one shark eye?
|
| how many fish, water mammals and may be humans shark killed for
| hundred years? did shark thought about their eyes?*
|
| *except in sence that eyeballs are very delicios
| seszett wrote:
| Greenland sharks don't kill humans, they're not more
| "responsible" for what white sharks do than you as a mammal
| are responsible for tigers killing their prey.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| I would agree, but then I read the Wikipedia page which says
| that around 10 of these animals are caught _every day_ as
| bycatch, so I assume the shark that was studied came from one
| of these.
|
| This shark takes 150 years to reach sexual maturity and
| gestates for 8-18 years. It's pretty fucked up that bycatch at
| this rate is just accepted because it surely is going to lead
| the species to extinction. Humans are pretty fucking arrogant.
|
| If these sharks were not caught at this rate then I would agree
| that they shouldn't be studied in ways that require killing
| them, but since they are, I think it is better to at least get
| some knowledge out of it and possibly raise awareness of the
| problem.
|
| Edit: read the article, and it actually says it was caught by
| the scientists and not as bycatch. Still, this catch is
| negligible compared to the 3500 that are caught, killed and
| thrown out again (I assume) each year
| andrewflnr wrote:
| > The Greenland sharks used in her co-study were caught
| between 2020 and 2024 using scientific long lines off the
| coast of the University of Copenhagen's Arctic Station on
| Disko Island, Greenland.
|
| But I guess a few sharks for scientific sampling are probably
| still negligible compared to bycatch.
| the-grump wrote:
| People don't want to face the music but the way we're fishing
| is completely unsustainable.
|
| The way we live on land is unsustainable too, of course.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| so we need to extract resources from space asap, now that
| the planet cant sustain entire human race
| duskdozer wrote:
| now this guy's just a straight shooter with upper
| management written all over him.
| maxbond wrote:
| Adding more resources doesn't solve the problem that they
| aren't being managed sustainably. We can't exhaust all
| the resources in space, but we could definitely exhaust
| all of the resources _accessible to us_ in space. Like
| how we can 't exhaust all of the oil or all of the gold
| on this planet, but we could exhaust all of the resource
| which can be mined economically.
|
| This was once explained to me with a metaphor of a
| bacteria colony in a jar. The colony doubles every 24
| hours. So they quickly exhaust the space in the jar. No
| problem, you give them another jar. 24 hours later, their
| population doubles, and they have filled both jars.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| Yes, it does
| maxbond wrote:
| Would you care to elaborate?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Resource intensity of GDP has been falling for decades,
| most quickly in developed economies. Space-based resource
| extraction isn't going to be _radically_ cheaper (if it
| ever is cheaper) than terrestrial sources with known
| propulsion, so that balance is unlikely to shift. Herego,
| replacing terrestrial extraction with moderately-cheaper
| space-based extraction would reduce harm to our ecosystem
| without changing our economies to turbo-consume materials
| and thereby accelerate terrestrial extraction.
| maxbond wrote:
| I agree it may reduce harm (depending on how the actual
| costs shake out), but the calculus remains that if you
| have access to finite resources but your needs are
| expanding exponentially, and you are not recycling them
| in some way, you will run out of resources no matter how
| many you have.
|
| I'm not opposed to exploiting resources in space, I think
| we should pursue the goal of being an "interplanetary
| species", but I think it's important to understand that
| it isn't a silver bullet or a free lunch. We still have
| to change our economy to be more sustainable.
|
| Not to mention that it is not clear that exploiting space
| resources or becoming interplanetary is _possible_. I
| presume that it is. But we shouldn 't bank our future on
| something unproven. We don't know if we're a decade away
| from mining our first asteroid or a century. We should
| assume that our future is here on Earth with the
| resources currently available to us, until proven
| otherwise.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if you have access to finite resources but your needs
| are expanding exponentially_
|
| Our material needs in many categories are _not_ expanding
| exponentially. On a per-capita basis, in advanced
| economies, it 's been flat in several categories.
|
| If anything, the constraints of spacefaring seem perfect
| for nudging a culture and economy towards conservation
| and recycling. Building lunar and Martian colonies
| requires short-term sustainability in a way that does not
| have clean parallels on Earth.
|
| > _we shouldn 't bank our future on something unproven_
|
| Nobody is banking on space-based resource extraction.
|
| > _We should assume that our future is here on Earth with
| the resources currently available to us, until proven
| otherwise_
|
| Bit of a paradox to this. On one hand, sure. On the other
| hand, given two civilisations, one which assumes space-
| based resource extraction and one which does not, which
| do you think is going to get there first?
| maxbond wrote:
| > On a per-capita basis, in advanced economies, it's been
| flat in several categories.
|
| Right, but our population is, at this time, growing
| exponentially. That may change but hasn't yet.
|
| > If anything, the constraints of spacefaring seem
| perfect for nudging a culture and economy towards
| conservation and recycling.
|
| Quite possibly! I agree. But what I was saying is that
| getting access to resources does not solve
| sustainability. If anything this is an argument that
| sustainability is a prerequisite for space travel and not
| the other way around.
|
| > Nobody is banking on space-based resource extraction.
|
| I understand this is not _your_ position, and I
| appreciate that your position is reasonable and informed.
| But it is what was being discussed when you joined the
| conversation. And it is something I hear people say all
| the time.
|
| Specifically, this is what I was responding to:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563421
|
| > [Which] do you think is going to get there first?
|
| Are these hypothetical civilizations on the brink of
| unlocking space travel? Or are they 100 years away? The
| civilization hell bent on space is likely to burn
| themselves out and replace their leadership with people
| with more grounded ideas if unlocking space travel isn't
| a realistic possibility for them. If space travel is
| right around the corner than my expectation would be the
| grounded civilization freaks out about national security
| and joins this space race in earnest. I think in either
| scenario, all else equal, it's a coin flip. The tortoise
| and the hare both have viable strategies given the right
| conditions.
|
| This is kinda sorta what happened in the space race. The
| USSR pursued rockets aggressively and took a massive
| early lead, believing that ICBMs were the solution the
| the USA's dominance in bomber aircraft. But they couldn't
| sustain that pace. If I recall correctly, by the time we
| landed on the moon they hadn't launched a mission in
| years. The USA more or less gave up on manned space
| travel and space colonization shortly thereafter.
| Obviously both continued to explore space and the tide is
| beginning to change, but I think that's a natural
| experiment which roughly addresses this question. (Not to
| the exclusion of future attempts with better technology
| going better.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _our population is, at this time, growing
| exponentially_
|
| Not in advanced ( _i.e._ materially intensive) economies.
| And global population models are currently all aiming
| towards stabilization.
|
| > _this is an argument that sustainability is a
| prerequisite for space travel and not the other way
| around_
|
| How so? Without space travel, there is no near-term
| incentive to develop those technologies. (The terrestrial
| incentives are all long term.)
|
| > _Are these hypothetical civilizations on the brink of
| unlocking space travel? Or are they 100 years away?_
|
| China and America are technologically within a decade of
| establishing Moon and Mars bases. Not permanent,
| independent settlements. But settlements that need to be
| as self-sustaining as possible nevertheless on account of
| launch costs and travel time.
|
| > _that 's a natural experiment which roughly addresses
| this question_
|
| I see a different reading. We got a _lot_ of
| sustainability-progressing technology out of the space
| race.
|
| Alignment with the goal of human colonization wasn't yet
| there. But there are reasons to be optimistic with modern
| materials, bioengineering and computational methods.
| Methods that could very easily also yield literal fruits
| that make our economies more sustainable at home.
| prmoustache wrote:
| No, we need to reduce dramatically our own population.
| zo1 wrote:
| That sort of thinking needs to first and almost-entirely
| be directed at China, India and Africa, then we can talk
| about sustainability and what the West can do.
| prmoustache wrote:
| The west is wasting much more resources and contributing
| to global warming more than these 3 continents/countries
| combined.
| srean wrote:
| There's a massive reduction in the whale song of the blue
| whales. Almost halved. They are presumably starving.
|
| That something ginormous can be so elegant, beautiful and
| sleek is hard to conceive till one meets a blue whale.
| Let's let them thrive on the blue planet.
| derektank wrote:
| The Blue Whale population has actually increased since
| the 70s. When they were critically endangered, their
| population numbered roughly 1,000-2,000 but population
| estimates for today put the number at roughly tenfold
| that. The 1966 worldwide moratorium on whaling has been
| incredibly successful and we've also seen recoveries in
| Humpback and Grey Whales.
| srean wrote:
| Compared to numbers at peak whaling you are correct. I
| was commenting on a more recent phenomena.
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/ocean-
| hea...
|
| http://archive.today/2025.09.03-030523/https://www.nation
| alg...
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| We keep talking about "sustainability" but sustainability
| is a secondary issue here.
|
| The primary issue is that we are taking individuals and
| basically torturing and/or killing them, rarely for good
| reasons.
|
| It won't even be decades before our descendants look back
| at horror for how we treat them, not unlike how we can't
| even imagine how our ancestors thought it was ok to have
| human slaves.
|
| The major difference will be that the horrors of human
| chattel slavery (even the name clearly links it to how we
| treat non human animals) have largely only been recorded
| via text. The horrors of our actions will be available in
| text, images, videos for all to see in perpetuity by just
| looking at an Instagram archive.
| dataflow wrote:
| Tangent, but you might want to watch this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tuS1LLOcsI
| alex1138 wrote:
| Douglas Adams had Last Chance To See and then the series got
| a reboot by Stephen Fry
| gimmeThaBeet wrote:
| jeez 8-18 years, is that a record or is it one of those
| things they don't know enough about them to narrow down?
| that's another thing to think about when my ignorant self is
| eating my sushi. i used to assume that farmed salmon was
| marginally better than wild, but given how much wild fish
| gets fed to farmed fish, not sure that is even a plus on top
| of the ecological effects of fish farming.
| bikeshaving wrote:
| It's sinful to fish and kill these ancient creatures up from the
| deep for minor scientific progress.
| derektank wrote:
| They're predatory scavengers that wouldn't hesitate to eat you
| if it had the opportunity. I would much rather conduct
| biomedical research on sharks than mice or rats.
| jaccola wrote:
| Ah yes potentially getting us one step closer to immortality,
| hardly worth killing an animal!
|
| I mostly eat vegan because I do have a strong dislike of
| factory farming and the way animals are treated there. But
| killing animals is a fact of life and I think scientific
| progress is a very valid reason to do so.
|
| To put it in perspective, a lot of shark young will kill each
| other in the womb such that only the strongest is birthed.
| These animals eat other animals alive, etc.. etc.. My point
| being it is not like the option is between a rosy utopia or
| human-inflicted suffering.
| arter45 wrote:
| I'm not against scientific research per se or living a bit
| more but... is immortality (or living for, say, 200 years or
| more) really something we should strive for?
|
| Many aspects of human society assume, one way or another,
| that our life expectancy is fairly limited. From politics
| (even absolute monarchs or dictators eventually die), to
| economics (think about retirement, for example), demographics
| (if everyone is immortal and everyone keeps having children,
| what happens?), even psychology ("everything passes").
|
| Are we willing to throw these implications away? What would
| be the purpose?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Many aspects of human society assume, one way or
| another, that our life expectancy is fairly limited_
|
| Assumptions can change. Each of our technological shifts
| was more upending than longer healthspans would be--most of
| the West is already a gerontocracy.
|
| > _What would be the purpose?_
|
| To not die horribly.
| arter45 wrote:
| > Assumptions can change. Each of our technological
| shifts was more upending than longer healthspans would be
| --most of the West is already a gerontocracy.
|
| Sure but is gerontocracy a good thing, then? I'm not
| against older people, but shifting the whole demographic
| towards them is not looking good for retirement, social
| constructs, and more. Immortality would bring this even
| further, especially when meant literally.
|
| > > What would be the purpose? To not die horribly.
|
| Well ok, but even if you can't die horribly (ignoring
| murders,...) you can still suffer horribly, physically or
| otherwise, for a variety of reasons. Starving, rape,
| physical and psychological abuse, painful diseases even
| if non lethal,... still exist regardless of immortality.
| It's not like immortal people are necessarily happy or
| good.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _shifting the whole demographic towards them is not
| looking good for retirement, social constructs, and more_
|
| I'm genuinely not seeing the problem. Longer lives means
| more productive lives. (A massive fraction of healthcare
| costs are related to obesity and aging. A minority of
| medicine is in trauma.)
|
| > _Immortality would bring this even further, especially
| when meant literally_
|
| We don't have a path to entropy-defying immortality. Not
| aging doesn't mean literal immortality.
|
| > _you can still suffer horribly, physically or
| otherwise, for a variety of reasons_
|
| The fact that you're levying this argument should seal
| the case. It's an argument that can be made against
| _anything_ good.
| arter45 wrote:
| Yes, of course it can be made against anything good, but
| what I mean is... is death truly the worst thing? Isn't
| it better to focus on other ways to reduce suffering?
| Unexpected death is of course tragic, but everything
| eventually stops. I understand looking into ways to treat
| diseases, reduce other unpleasant events and possibly
| reduce pain (physical or otherwise), but immortality to
| me looks like something you (a generic you) just for the
| sake of it. Also because, when you think about it, you
| only die once, but you experience suffering in a variety
| of ways. In addition, death is a way to "enforce" change.
| Sometimes it's bad, other times it's good.
|
| > Longer lives means more productive lives.
|
| When you work until you're, say, 80, what happens? You
| have less time to enjoy some rest, you still do your work
| (which means, if everything else stays equal, that there
| is less room for people taking your job and gaining
| experience because you are as productive as always).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Isn't it better to focus on other ways to reduce
| suffering?_
|
| Why?
|
| > _ways to treat diseases_
|
| Aging underlies tons of diseases. (It's similar to
| obesity in that way.)
|
| > _death is a way to "enforce" change. Sometimes it's
| bad, other times it's good_
|
| This is true of everything bad. You could use this logic
| for ceasing research into curing cancer, trauma medicine
| or seatbelts and traffic lights.
|
| > _of course it can be made against anything good_
|
| Which makes it a pointless argument. (And implicit
| concession that you're arguing against something good.)
|
| > _When you work until you're, say, 80, what happens? You
| have less time to enjoy some rest_
|
| ...why? You have more time.
|
| In a world without aging, retirement at 80 would be an
| objectively better deal than retiring at 60 today. You'd
| be retiring with a body that hasn't started failing. And
| you'd have more years, on average, ahead of you.
|
| > _there is less room for people taking your job and
| gaining experience because you are as productive as
| always_
|
| Lump of labour fallacy. (Average adult lifespans have
| gone up over the last two centuries. That has accompanied
| more, not less, labour-market dynamism.)
| jonplackett wrote:
| So wait did they just catch a 200 year old shark and cut its eye
| ball out to have a look?
| imcritic wrote:
| Yeah, the article both mentions it and leaves any details out!
| Did they kill the shark or did they only collect its eyeball??
| internet_points wrote:
| Highly recommend the book "Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a
| Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean" by Morten
| Stroksnes if you're interested in old sharks, small boats or deep
| oceans https://bookshop.org/p/books/shark-drunk-the-art-of-
| catching...
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| I'm starting to realise we don't really want a cure to aging.
|
| Imagine a world where people like Stalin never die. People like
| bill gates never have to pretend to be a nice person...
|
| If there's no chance of death, there will never be any progress
| in society. People in power would just establish a tighter and
| tighter grip. All the boomers would be immune to death and
| disease, but the treatment would be banned for the young because
| they haven't done enough to earn it.
| maipen wrote:
| Dictators die all the time and most often not of old age. As we
| get older our flexibility to adapt to change also starts to
| diminish. You will eventually be outperformed. We can't account
| for what we don't know.
| quesera wrote:
| Perhaps, but the power conferred by the miracle of compound
| interest does not require performance.
| EugeneOZ wrote:
| People like Einstein would find a solution.
| derektank wrote:
| If your thesis was correct, we would presumably not treat
| children for cancer. Since that's evidently not the case, I'm
| not sure how you're coming to this conclusion
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Reminds me of the film 'In Time' where the rich can be
| immortal.
|
| It does seem that nature has it 'programmed in' that we are to
| die due to telomere shortening and for natural selection to
| take place. Our modern and constantly changing society likely
| means that any kind of evolutionary adaptation doesn't have
| long enough to prove itself.
|
| Interestingly how people would handle immortality could change
| that.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| ...and Altered Carbon (primarily the book but also the TV
| series), which does things a lot better than "In Time".
| mlrtime wrote:
| 90% will say this until they are faced with death and then they
| just want 1 more minute.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"I'm starting to realise we don't really want a cure to
| aging."
|
| YOU realize that WE do not need. How convenient of you to tell
| me what I need. I think this is how Stalin's of the world
| start.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| You'll enjoy "Altered Carbon", which focuses (partially) on
| this topic: if we get rid of death, then the worst of the
| aristocracy never dies.
| asah wrote:
| +1000 - altered carbon season 1 is amazing. IMHO commit to
| watching it 3x to get everything going on - after the first
| watching, everyone's like "that was amazing but I'm not sure
| what I just watched." It's just so rich - if The Matrix is
| 136 mins vs 570 mins with that much more depth.
| milleramp wrote:
| Also Greg Egan's Permutation City covers these topics in a
| different way.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| You need both sides of the coin. Yes your Emperor is forever
| young but so are the heroes among us. Eisenhower turns 135,
| Hitler 136.
| keiferski wrote:
| Unfortunately it also seems like these sharks are plagued by
| parasites in their eyes:
|
| _The shark is often infested by the copepod Ommatokoita
| elongata, a crustacean that attaches itself to the shark 's
| eyes.[17] The copepod may display bioluminescence, thus
| attracting prey for the shark in a mutualistic relationship, but
| this hypothesis has not been verified.[18] These parasites can
| cause multiple forms of damage to the sharks' eyes, such as
| ulceration, mineralization, and edema of the cornea, leading to
| almost complete blindness.[11] This does not seem to reduce the
| life expectancy or predatory ability of Greenland sharks, due to
| their strong reliance on smell and hearing._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Are they parasites though? It may be symbiotic, especially if
| the relationship between the species has spanned over many
| years. e.g. their presence may promote the production of
| rhodopsin.
|
| OTOH it may be natures way of allowing natural selection to
| take place in the sharks since their lifespan is so long. The
| wiki article seems to imply that's not the case though.
| oncallthrow wrote:
| > These parasites can cause multiple forms of damage to the
| sharks' eyes, such as ulceration, mineralization, and edema
| of the cornea, leading to almost complete blindness.
| xeetzer wrote:
| Would it be fucked up? Yes. But, that doesn't contradict a
| possible symbiotic relationship.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| It's one of those 'invisible hand' things where killing off
| older sharks may be advantageous in the long run. One of
| many possibilities.
|
| One idea behind that is that any environment has a carrying
| capacity, limitations on food etc. It may be the parasites
| favour older sharks etc etc.
| sowbug wrote:
| Parasitism is in the eye of the beholder.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Begrudging upvote for you my friend.
| cubefox wrote:
| https://smbc-comics.com/comic/2003-02-07
| bicx wrote:
| This is what the article begins by addressing and questioning.
| androiddrew wrote:
| Soon to be America sharks.
| simoes wrote:
| Anyone else surprised to see a Greenland headline without Trump
| involved?
| mlrtime wrote:
| Godwins law v2
| qq540738209 wrote:
| This shark is really an amazing creature.
| csr86 wrote:
| I have permanent damage on my retina of other eye. I hope one day
| humans could regenerate their retinas as sharks and zebrafish can
| do. Seems strange, that fish living in deep dark oceans can fix
| their eyes, while most mammals who rely on vision a lot more
| cannot.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| The article talk about DNA repairs, helping the eye to maintain
| its function in the long run. It's not a repair after injurie.
| I also hope for progress in human eye medecine.
| hearsathought wrote:
| Thought we'd have replaceable eyes, teeth, hair, etc by now.
| When your vision goes, instead of getting new contacts or
| glasses, just replace your eyes with a new pair. You have
| cavities, just replace your tooth with another. The promise of
| genetic sequencing and research just hasn't panned out.
| yread wrote:
| Give it time reprogramming stem cells without the source code
| or even disassemblers is hard
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| If it happens to humans, we all could look forward to relaxing
| the high power laser laws (pun intended).
| old_bayes wrote:
| So how did they get the Greenland shark eyeballs to dissect for
| the research paper?
| imcritic wrote:
| I hate this stupid style of writing. So did they find out
| anything new besides the fact that a shark supposedly still sees
| the light? Did this particular shark get a parasite on its eyes
| or not? Not a single word about DNA repair mechanisms except for
| in the baity title. Awful.
|
| TL;DR: we think sharks eyes can still see light even if the
| sharks a centuries old, please fund us for further research!
| arbuge wrote:
| I had no idea they could live for 400 years... I actually now
| realize that I never thought about the lifespan of a shark
| before, but I would have guessed (prior to this education) around
| 25 years or so.
| cubefox wrote:
| This article contains basically no information about the topic
| mentioned in the headline, just vaguely related chitchat.
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