DailyDirt: Jellyfish As Pets?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If you're not a dog or cat person, maybe you prefer fish or some other pet that doesn't require too much attention. If vertebrates -- or even invertebrates -- are too evolved for your liking, some folks have come up with a few jellyfish aquariums that might suit your tastes. You still need to take care of these creatures, and they're not immortal (unless your name is Shin Kubota), unfortunately.

• Jellyfish Art has a jellyfish aquarium that looks convenient. At about $340 for the supplies and 3 live moon jellies, it's not exactly an impulse buy like a pet store goldfish. [url]
• The Darwin Tank is another very nice, but expensive jellyfish tank for nearly $2000. And in case you were wondering, the tank's name doesn't mean that you're trying to pit your pet jellies against each other to cultivate the fittest jellyfish specimen that can live in a glass container. [url]
• The "original" desktop jellyfish tank on Kickstarter was funded in 2012. It's still available from Jellyfish Art for a bit less than the latest aquarium design, but it's temporarily out of stock for a bit. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: aquarium, immortal jellyfish, jellyfish, pets
Companies: kickstarter

DailyDirt: Staying In Space Isn't Healthy...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Getting into a metal can bolted to a rocket is inherently dangerous. And even after you've escaped the full force of the Earth's pull, you're still not safe floating around in microgravity. There's radiation and the obvious nothingness that'll kill you in a few minutes if you're exposed to the vacuum of space. Assuming you're protected in a nice shielded spacecraft with plenty of food/water/air, you can spend months up there, but then you'll have problems getting back to terra firma. Survive the landing, and you may find out that your muscles have atrophied substantially. Here are just a few more links to possible challenges with manned space explorations.

• Drosophila flies born in space have weakened immune systems, making them much more susceptible to infections. Fly eggs were raised in space, and when they returned, they couldn't fight off a fungal infection that flies raised under normal (and hyper-) gravity could. [url]
• Space-born jellyfish have a hard time telling up from down when they return to normal gravity. Normal jellyfish can sense up/down from the motion of small calcium sulfate crystals that stimulate hair-like cells (similar to the way humans' inner ears give us balance), but astronaut jellyfish don't develop those cells in the same way without gravity. This could mean that baby humans born and raised in microgravity might also have some balance problems -- in addition to other complications. [url]
• The Committee on Human Spaceflight has collected some papers on the effects of space on humans. These papers include various risks to astronaut health but also benefits to earth-bound humans in technology advancement and scientific discoveries. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: astronauts, drosophila, health, human spaceflight, infection, jellyfish, manned space exploration, microgravity, space

DailyDirt: Robots Of The Sea

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but some of the more interesting designs mimic some animals in the ocean. Machines that can operate underwater have some obvious military applications, but studying biomimicry can also lead to discoveries in biology and deep sea ecosystems. Here are just a few projects looking at some varieties of sea-faring robots.

• The field of biorobotics has created evolving fish robots to help understand the natural evolution of fish. Or... this is actually a direct study of intelligent design if you live in Tennessee. [url]
• The Octopus Project has built the world's first entirely soft robot with eight flexible arms that can crawl around underwater. It's not quite as mobile or dextrous as a real octopus, but soft robots are making some progress towards becoming useful. [url]
• The US Navy has funded a Robojelly project to make a soft robot that copies some of the characteristics of the moon jellyfish. This Robojelly robot is also self-powered using seawater as an electrolyte to activate its artificial muscles to contract. [url]
• To discover more interesting robotics-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: biorobotics, evolution, fish, jellyfish, navy, octopus, robojelly, robots