The Silent World

The ocean is a wondrous place, teeming with life. As the ocean is the main component of Earth, it is integral to  life , forms part of the  carbon cycle , and influences  climate  and  weather  patterns. The World Ocean is the  habitat  of 230,000 known  species , but because much of it is unexplored, the number of species that exist in the ocean is much larger, possibly over two million. It is also the first place where life emerged: in the form of single cellular life. Our oceans, or more correctly, our ocean, the World Ocean is an integral part of life on this planet. In addition to being the place where life first arised, it is a major component in the climates in which we live in. As humans have failed to stop global warming, the waters are rising, and drinkable water is drying up. This is a great problem for living beings on land, but on the other side of the spectrum, the space in which marine animals can thrive...

The ocean is truly an amazing place, full of different and otherworldly life forms. Since the beginning of life on earth -in the ocean, as single cellular life- many of these have been evolving, changing, species appearing, going extinct... The oceans are the source of all life on the planet, and undebatably with the most variety.  To show you exactly how diverse life in these waters can be, here are five spectacular creatures you might have not even heard about, currently residing in our oceans. Siphonophore Siphonophores are colonial organisms made up of zooids. A zooid is a multicellular organism which fulfills a function in a colony, or forms a bigger animal. What makes them more peculiar is that they are not single cellular organisms, from which colonies are much easier to believe, but multicellular. We can think of this as a group of animals coming together to form an even bigger animal. There are about 118 species of Siphonophorae known to man, some of...

Humanity has always wanted to go places they didn't see before, to explore, and to know everything possible. The oceans and seas are a great example (even though a large portion of them are still undiscovered!) to this, and for this humans have invented many devices to help with this mission.  Before the aqualung, the best tool to work underwater was the diving suit and helmet. They were heavy, and needed a hose that ran to an air compressor on land or a boat. These had been used for almost 100 years before this invention. The Aqua-Lung  was the first open-circuit scuba to reach worldwide popularity and commercial success. (In fact, the name used for the aqualung is SCUBA, meaning Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. This is where scuba diving comes from.)   Aqua-Lung is the brand of air regulator, which can be attached to gas tanks. (This is a pressure regulator that controls the pr...