Taking the Pulse of the Ocean’s Comb Jellies
The New York Times
New kinds of molecular probes are revealing the true extent of ctenophores, a form of ocean life that has long eluded firm reckonings.
The enormousness of the global sea has, over ages of exploration, made the appraisals of prime inhabitants more like rough sketches than detailed portraits. Now, scientists have devised a precise way of detecting one of the ocean’s more exotic creatures. Estimates of its global abundance, they say, will likely soar. The organisms are known as ctenophores. While looking superficially like jellyfish, they have no stingers and none of the usual body pulsations and rhythms that power jellyfish. Instead, what moves them through seawater are pulsating rows of feathery cilia. The tiny hairlike bundles resemble the teeth of a comb, giving the creatures their other name: comb jellies.
As the glaciers of South America retreat, the supply of freshwater is dwindling and its quality is getting worse.
It’s something turkey often isn’t — undeniably juicy and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
A rise in the disease in younger people was not followed by an increase in deaths, a study found, and might be a sign of overdiagnosis.
The Homotherium cub was preserved in Siberian permafrost with its dark fur and flesh intact.
A small study found ChatGPT outdid human physicians when assessing medical case histories, even when those doctors were using a chatbot.
For a century, exoplanet hunters have “discovered” planets around a nearby star, only to retract the claims. But the latest find is for real.
The unidentified patient had recently returned from Africa, where the virus has caused a deadly epidemic, health officials said.
The event produces some of the year’s fastest meteors, although the nearly full moon may make them challenging to spot.
Mr. Musk dug into his companies’ budgets, preferring to cut too much rather than too little and to deal with the fallout later. Under Donald Trump, he is set to apply those tactics to the U.S. government.
Behind the scenes at a Chicago zoo, chimpanzees who spent years entertaining humans are learning to befriend their own kind.
The agency’s top medical official was responding to rumors that Suni Williams had lost an unusual amount of weight during an extended stay in orbit.