Entries Tagged "squid"
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Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Also See Through Non-Eye Organ
The UW-Madison researchers have been intrigued by the light organ’s “counterillumination” ability—this capacity to give off light to make squids as bright as the ocean surface above them, so that predators below can’t see them.
“Until now, scientists thought that illuminating tissues in the light organ functioned exclusively for the control of the intensity and direction of light output from the organ, with no role in light perception,” says McFall-Ngai. “Now we show that the E. scolopes squid has additional light-detecting tissue that is an integral component of the light organ.”
The researchers demonstrated that the squid light organ has the molecular machinery to respond to light cues. Molecular analysis showed that genes that produce key visual proteins are expressed in light-organ tissues, including genes similar to those that occur in the retina. They also showed that, as in the retina, these visual proteins respond to light, producing a physiological response.
“We found that the light organ in the squid is capable of sensing light as well as emitting and controlling the intensity of luminescence,” says co-author Nansi Jo Colley, SMPH professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and of genetics.
Friday Squid Blogging: Flying Squid
Ommastrephid squids “glide over the ocean surface.”
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Pasta
Step by step instructions on how to make squid pasta.
Friday Squid Blogging: How to Capture a Giant Squid
Method 2: Offer Squid a Tasty Treat
If your preferred squid looks hungry, try luring it with a delicious oil tanker. During the course of the 1930s, the Norwegian tanker Brunswick was attacked not once, not twice, but three times by giant squid. Metal boats don’t sound especially appetizing, but scientists think squid mistake the large, gray objects for whales—a decidedly yummy entree giant squid have been known to dine upon. Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to get a good grip on the steel hull of a tanker, than on the pliable hide of a whale. Whenever a squid tried to put the Brunswick in a choke hold, its tentacles would slip, and the squid would end up making a fatal slide into the ship’s propellers.
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Forensics
Not what you think; it’s about forensics of the Squid web/proxy cache.
Note the squid stamp, though.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.