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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Young marine organism tested in vision experiment (Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography)Pilots flying at high altitudes need extra oxygen, or they'll start to lose vision — and eventually pass out. Similarly, creatures dwelling in the oceans also require oxygen to see. Unfortunately for them, the seas are now gradually losing oxygen...Recognizing that this loss of oxygen could also cause blindness in sea organisms, scientists at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography tested how reduced oxygen levels impacted the vision of squid, octopus, and crab species.Their results, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, showed that these organisms did indeed experience varying degrees of blindness, including near total blindness. Out in the vast open oceans, there are two big drivers of oxygen loss. One is simple physics. "As the ocean absorbs heat — excess heat from the greenhouse effect — the water generally holds less gas," said Takamitsu Ito, an oceanographer in the Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, who also had no role in the study.
