14.50, Friday 21 Jan 2011

From this list of 6 Tiny Things That Have Mind-Blowing Global Impacts I discover that every living thing in the ocean combines to move enough water to stir things up as much as the moon and wind. More info at this article: Jellyfish Are the Dark Energy of the Oceans. Basic story goes like this: scientists were trying to figure out where ripples and movements of the ocean come from. The moon is an obvious one, as is the wind. And they assumed that all the movements of fish and krill and whatnot would cancel out. But no -- the effects of all these tiny living things add up to about the same as the pull of gravity of the one great big moon. That's a lovely metaphor for something, I'm sure.

Another good fact: most of the ocean - excepting the top 300 feet or so - is so placid that a couple hand-held kitchen mixers could stir a cubic mile of it.