The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea
by: Abhishek Varma
I was once watching this documentary on the discovery chanel, about the dangerous creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean. The environment is so harsh that these animals have to adapt and evolve in such radical ways that make them appear as something we have never before seen. I will be reflecting on some of the most interesting deep sea creatures isaw on the program and later did research on.


The Colossal Squid: The stuff dreams are made of. The monsters prowl the bottom of the ocean.. almost invisible. Although the world regards the chameleon as the most apt at camouflage, the title actually goes to the octopus and squid family. While the chameleon takes about 2 mins to fuly change its colour across the visible spectrum ( from red to blue), the octopus takes about 2 seconds. And not only does it change colour, it also changes its texture, whether rock like the corals, or smooth like the sand. In fact, the mimic octopus makes its tentacles look like sea snakes when seeking protection and mimics the coral weed when ambushing prey. The colossal squid just remains the same shade of deep, dark blue. The only deep sea animal that ca effectively detect the squid is the sperm whale, which I will elaborate on later on. The squid often gets into a tussle with the sperm whale, which happens to be the largest animal in the world with teeth. When attacked, the squid will suddenly turn into a flash of blood red, startling prey and even making the sperm whale pause for a fatal moment or so. The squids tentacles have sharp hooks which latch on to the whale and slowly rips through its skin and blubber and even its eyes.. In fact this battle is so evenly matched that the sperm whale wins only 6 out of ten times, albeit accidentally. The thing is the if the sperm whale remains mobile for long enough, it will need to surface for air, exploiting the squids only weakness, low pressure which will cause the squid to explode. Of course the squid will let go before the pressure gets to low, but it will be so weak that it just wont be able to tackle the sperm whale. If the fight lasts shorter than that, the squid will almost definitely win, with it tentacles, mobility, and speed. Unique adaptations
The tentacle club, the expanded distal portion of the tentacle, is endowed with two rows of swiveling hooks The beaks are the largest known of any squid , exceeding those of Giant squid in size and robustness
The eyes are probably the largest in the animal kingdom approximately the size of dinner plates.(even larger than those of the giant squid)
The relatively short arms are endowed with a combination of hooks and suckers.


The Sperm Whale: the only creature that can survive pressure at sea level, and at extremely high pressure. And probably the only creature that can survive a fight with the colossal squid.
The sperm whale is a toothed whale that lives in pods. It has a huge brain that weighs about 20 pounds (9 kg); it is the largest brain of any animal. The sperm whale has a single blowhole that is s-shaped and about 20 inches long. The blowhole is located on the left side of the front if its huge head. The sperm whale has a 4-12 inch thick layer of blubber.
Sperm whales produce ambergris, a dark, waxy substance (related to cholesterol) that is produced in the lower intestines, and is sometimes found containing squid beaks. Ambergris may help protect the sperm whale from the stings on the giant squid, its major food. However, it does not provide much protection agaist th ecollosal squid's beak. Large lumps of ambergris may be vomited up by the sperm whale. It is able to ‘see’ in the darkness by detecting electric pulses made by animals.
The fictional Moby Dick was a sperm whale.

The Angler fish: probably the most bizarre sea creature alive. It has massive teeth and it is able to survive deep sea pressure. It also has its characteristic light connected to the top of its head, that glows in the darkness. The spine protrudes above the fish's eyes, with a fleshy growth at the tip of the spine . This growth can be wiggled so as to resemble a prey animal, and thus to act as bait to lure other predators close enough for the anglerfish to devour them whole. To accomplish this, the anglerfish is able to distend both its jaw and its stomach (its bones are thin and flexible) to enormous size, allowing it to swallow prey up to twice as large as its entire body.

However, the most bizarre feature will probably be its mating adaptation. As it is very difficult to locate the male( which is 40 times smaller than the female) in the darkness of the sea, once it finds a male, the male goes and and bites it the female at the rear. Once it bites, it never lets go. Its head dissolves itno the female’s skin and its blood stream connects to the blood stream of the female. It gets its nutrients from the blood stream of the female. Whenever the female feels like it, it will send a chemical signal to the male and it will fertilize her. When a male anglerfish hatches, it is equipped with extremely well developed olfactory organs that detect scents in the water. They have no digestive system, and thus are unable to feed independently. They must find a female anglerfish, and quickly, or else they will die. This is an extreme example of sexual dimorphism.( A distinct difference in appearance between males and females of the same species)

Osteoarthritis

Composed by: Arindam Chowdhury
Class: 3.13 Haggai

When I came over the article on osteoarthritis, I realized that the word sounded quite familiar. After thinking for a while I recalled that it was my grandma who was suffering from this condition. This increased my interest to find out more about this condition.

Osteoarthritis is an illness caused by the loss of cartilage covering the joints. This leads to inflammation of the joint and causes much pain. Cartilages are protein substances that act as cushion over joints to facilitate movement of the joint. In osteoarthritis eventually the cartilage is completely destroyed. I learned that among the 100 over arthritis conditions osteoarthritis is the most common one. As it occurs more and more with aging, I also learned that before the age of 45 this condition is more common in males, however after the age of 55 females are considered to be more prone to this condition. Another interesting fact I came to know of was that a higher incidence of osteoarthritis exists in the Japanese population, while South African blacks, East Indians and Southern Chinese have lower rates. Osteoarthritis can occur in a number of places. Most of the common ones include hands, feet, hips, knees and the spine as well.

I also got to know some of the causes of this condition. The process of aging causes primary osteoarthritis. Over several decades, the joints undergo much of the repetitive action that is the eventual cause of the flaking and disintegration of the cartilage between joints. Osteoarthritis is also a hereditary derived condition. The second part of this condition, known as the secondary osteoarthritis can be due to one of several causes such as obesity, repeated trauma or surgery to the joint, abnormal joints at growth, gout, diabetes and other hormone disorders.

Osteoarthritis is a disease of the joints and unlike other forms of arthritis this condition does not cause inflammation to other parts of the body except for the affected joint. Osteoarthritis also causes the formation of hard bony enlargements of the small joints of the fingers. This bony enlargement of the small joints at the end of the fingers is called a Heberden's node, named after a very famous British doctor.

An x-ray of the affected joint is the most common way of detecting osteoarthritis. Results will show the absence of a cartilage or may show abnormal narrowing of the joints.

Despite the presence of 21st century’s cutting edge medical technology, there has been no specific treatment to cure the degeneration of the cartilage found in the affected joint. However there are some precautions that can be taken or even a surgery can be performed to replace the faulty joint with an artificial one. However this is only carried out in severe cases and otherwise most are asked to carry out the precautions told by doctors. Such precautions may be stopping physical exertion, or even carrying out regular exercise to strengthen the muscle around the joint and prevent the joint from freezing up as well as loosing weight and at times patients are given mechanical supports. In other occasions to keep the excruciating pain at bay, pain relievers such as aspirin is used. Or even Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are prescribed to patients to kill the pain.

Looks like osteoarthritis is a condition similar to the story of nature over man. There are some things that man has no say over to and one of the most obvious is death. And it seems that, like death, osteoarthritis is also bound to happen to at least some people in the world. But can man one day unlock the codes to deny nature’s laws?

Done by: Arindam Chowdhury

Heartful or heartless?

Composed by: V.N.Vikram (34)
Class: 3.13 Haggai

Have you ever wondered how the heart works? From the moment it works till the moment it stops, the human heart works tirelessly. In an average lifetime, the human heart beats for about two and a half billion times, without ever passing to rest. It is the initiator of life. In fact, it is the largest muscle in the body.
Last year, all the students had experienced how the human heart actually looks like and how it is able to sustain life during a chapter know as the human circulatory system? Naturally, you would have noticed that I have sustained an interest in cardiology and I aspire to become a cardiologist.
I would briefly tell you what makes up the heart and how blood flows through the heart.
The heart consists of four chambers- the upper two are known as the atria (be it right atrium and left atrium) and the bottom two are known as the ventricles (be it right ventricle and left ventricle). a valve connects each atium to a ventricle. A middle wall known as the septum separates the left and right side of the heart. The top of the heart connects to a few large blood vessels. The largest of these is the aorta, or main artery, which carries nutrient-rich blood away from the heart. Another important vessel is the pulmonary artery which connects the heart with the lungs as part of the pulmonary circulation system. The heart's muscle, called cardiac muscle, contracts and relaxes about 70 to 80 times per minute without you ever having to think about it. As the cardiac muscle contracts it pushes blood through the chambers and into the vessels. Nerves connected to the heart regulate the speed with which the muscle contracts. Therefore, the heart's structure enables it to pump blood around the body.
If the heart is perceived to be such an efficient development whose mysteries cannot be unravelled and discovered in days or weeks and even years, why is that cardiovascular diseases are becoming the leading cause of deaths in the world. When blood flow from the heart to the other parts of the body is decreased, the heart is over-exerted and this leads to heart disease. Fatty deposits in arteries, hypertension are also causes of heart diseases. All these can be controlled by Man. However, genetic predisposition to a heart disease cannot be solved, with today's advancements, it would be possible to actually alter the DNA sequences at the time of birth itself in the near future. So, the efficiency of the heart is not totally flawless but it all lies in the hands of Man.

to believe or not to believe?

NIKHIL:

In the world we live in today, there is a theory that has been much debated on, its full of controversy, its the origin of mankind. the questions is always "did evoulution occur"?". Recentely as i was reading the online scientifict news, i came across this article where they mentioned that " snake threats may have spurned evolution" . I was left dumbfounded as never would i have imagined such a reason to trigger the evolution process. After reading the article, i realized that The ability to detect threatening snakes may have shaped the visual system of our primate ancestors. The primates evolved to obtain foward facing eyes which helped them aquire more depth in visualization. This helped them greatly to fend off from poisonous snakes. therefore we can say that the eyes we have today, is a product of survival. I hope to read more of these kind of articles which can explain our origin to a certain extent. However i must realize that the view of evolution is not accepted by a large number of communities in the world and that i have to respect their views and make statements that are neutral. More on this article can be read at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-snake-evolve.html

Other than that, this topic is very open to interpretation. Some realists, say that evolution is not possbile, as the aim of evolution is to obtain maximum effiency and we human beings are not as effiecient as the amoeba. Therefore they claim that if the evolution theory is to be accepted, it should be like a more backward kind of evolution from human beings to amoeba's. This angle of looking at this topic completely contradicts the darwin's theory of evolution.

My interests lie very much in this topic and as a result to broaden my reasearch level, i have taken this topic as my Individualized study option . I hope to get a clearer understanding of this topic. In future i hope to shed some light on this and answer many peoples thoughts and questions as to where did the humans originate from.

done by nikhil