Today as I click on an article called ‘10 Things that Scientists Now Know about the Ocean’ on Smithsonian.com, there is that sense of ominous foreboding like that which surrounds a drunken boy stepping into a tool shed in a horror movie. Anyway, I am feeling brave so I click the link.
We all make mistakes. We sometimes make them on Sunday. We usually regret them. We often make them on the internet. Today, I accomplish all three.
On this list, there is a lot of information that will ruin a leisurely Sunday morning coffee. Among that information are casual tidbits such as radioactive fish attacking the California coast and the usual rigmarole about climate change causing the oceans to plot against us land people like the Russian judge at an Olympic event. I learn that leatherback turtles and the Great Barrier Reef are completely screwed and that something called a mega-flood covered the Earth about 14,000 years ago. We may be able to ignore the turtles and Great Barrier Reef (it is off of Australia for the love of Paul Hogan) but the prefix mega on any word other than burrito or sandwich is never, ever a good thing. This includes earthquake, volcano, flood or shark.
Probably the worst piece of knowledge attained this morning is the existence of something called The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This is an enormous (the size of Texas) swirl of garbage swimming around the Pacific Ocean.
If there is one thing that sensationalistic apocalyptic films have taught me it’s that these things are alive, angry and interested in revenge. So now, as I fly over the Atlantic in July I will not worry about crashing in the ocean, I will worry about crashing into the center of a Texas-sized swirl of living garbage that is going to end my life amid a flotsam of discarded condoms and Oreo cookie wrappers.
Why worry about this?
Five seconds on Wikipedia: The North Atlantic Garbage Patch
Stupid knowledge.
link to the article on Smithsonian.com
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2012/06/roiling-in-the-deep/
#1 by PJ on June 11, 2012 - 2:59 pm
I don’t know what you’re worried about, it’ll probably end up being the good kind of sentient garbage patch, like Madame Trash Heap in Fraggle Rock. When you’re plane crashes, she’ll look at you and say “stop making so much trash! Madame Trash Heap has spoken!” and then throw you to whichever mega-animal is hanging around at the time.
#2 by Damien Galeone on June 11, 2012 - 3:37 pm
madame Trash Heap is exactly what I thought of when I read this article.
#3 by Isaac on June 11, 2012 - 3:26 pm
mmm….megasandwich…
#4 by Damien Galeone on June 11, 2012 - 3:38 pm
Isaac, look up pictures of mega-sandwich online. You will become as obsessed as I am with it!
#5 by Andy on June 11, 2012 - 5:56 pm
My inner video game nerd is disgusted that you would insult Mega Man like that (and yes, I’m well aware that you will need to look that reference up, old man).
Also, this article made me think of the National Geographic “Sea Monster” poster.