Shaking things Up
Scientists on a deep sea dive recently made a major discovery. What looked to be small balls of sediment actually turned out to be moving creatures. They first noticed this when they realized the tracks left by these “rocks” did not follow the flow of the ocean currents. What is even more astounding is that these “Sea Grapes” are actually single celled organisms over an inch long! This completely goes against everything science has told us about the space to volume ratio.
In short, the space to volume ratio means that as surface area is squared, volume is cubed. This means that it becomes increasingly harder to move nutrients from outside the body to inside the body to feed organs, which is why we don’t have giant amoebas the size of houses.
It only takes one cell to KILL
The other astounding thing about these sea grapes is that the trails match up with trails found from fossils. Previously, scientists had thought these trails marked the first large multicellular organisms. If it’s possible for creatures with one cell to make these tracks, multicellular organisms could’ve arrived much later than previously thought.
Unfortunately, I’m sure they’d make pretty boring pets.
-Via Science Daily
