photo by Greig Christie (treefell on Flickr CC)

Are the jellyfish really taking over? They’re outcompeting “real” fish and multiplying in enormous “blooms” as oceans warm from the effects of climate change.

In fact, jellyfish may be the only species worth fishing in European waters by 2048 if trends in overfishing are allowed to continue.

But jellies are not content with that. Now they’ve gone and shut down two reactors at a nuclear power station in Scotland.

Too many jellyfish were been found in the seawater filters at Torness power station in East Lothian, Scotland on Tuesday; causing officials at the plant to shut down two reactors as a precautionary measure.

A spokesman for the plant’s operators, EDF Energy, was quoted by the Press Association:

Reduced cooling water flows due to ingress from jellyfish, seaweed and other marine debris are considered as part of the station’s safety case and are not an unknown phenomenon.

EDF has been netting jellies and paying fishing trawlers to catch them in order to deal with the problem. Pro nuclear energy lobbyists have already accused the jellyfish of working for Greenpeace.

(That last sentence is a joke)

For more on the story click here to watch a BBC video report.

photo by Shayne Kaye (Flickr CC)

I have seen the future and it stings.

Climate change, overfishing and agricultural runoff are all possible factors in the rise of jellyfish populations in seas around the globe. Jellyfish invasions such as those experienced by Spain last summer are actually population booms and/or mass migrations attributed to warmer waters, a reduction of predators and an increase of oceanic pollution from organic fertilizers.

Besides wreaking havoc on Spain’s beaches, jellyfish have been blamed for wiping out salmon stocks in Northern Ireland and disrupting the running of coastal power and desalination plants in Africa, the Middle East and Japan.

New research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that the rise in jellyfish populations may not only be aided by climate change, but is also contributing to it by making oceans more acidic, thereby disrupting their function as carbon sinks.

Oceans have been taking up 25% of the carbon dioxide that man has produced over the last 200 years, so it’s been acting as a buffer for climate change. When you add more carbon dioxide to sea water it becomes more acidic. And already that is happening at a rate that hasn’t occurred in 600 million years. The acidification of the oceans is already predicted to have such a corrosive effect that unprotected shellfish will dissolve by the middle of the century

–Dr Carol Turley, Plymouth University Marine Laboratory (as quoted in the Guardian)

The rise of the jellyfish is also changing the balance of oceanic ecosystems around the globe. Though jellies are consumed by humans in some Asian countries, the rest of the world may want to develop a taste for them as global fish stocks decline. Thankfully, I’m a smug vegetarian.

Read more on this story in the Guardian.

But jellyfish are not simply ruining the world, they are also being used by mad scientists to create living laser beams – with therapeutic applications in mind, of course. Researchers at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States have managed to get a single cell from a glowing jellyfish to emit laser light.

Read more about that on the BBC News website.

photo by Hans Hillewaert (Wikimedia Commons)

Spain’s beaches are unusually full of dangerous, round, pinkish-purple blobs this year. No, they’re not aggressive sunburnt British holidaymakers drunk on cheap Spanish beer, but swarms of Mauve Stinger jellyfish – and they’re causing havoc.

Several beaches on the Costa Blanca – an area on Spain’s Mediterranean coast which is particularly popular with British tourists – have been closed due to the recent invasion of jellyfish. The Mauve Stinger jellyfish, or Pelagia nocticula, has a mild sting, but can cause severe, even fatal, reactions in some people.

From a report in the Telegraph:

The Red Cross treated 50 people for stings in just half an hour last Thursday on a beach in Denia, a resort on Spain’s eastern Mediterranean coast and fear numbers may reach that of 2008, when a record 4,000 people were treated for stings in Denia alone.

Jellyfish populations have boomed in the past few years – a phenomenon attributed to global warming, overfishing and organic pollution from agricultural waste and fertilizers.

Warmer temperatures may also be causing the Mauve Stingers to move north. In 2007 a salmon farm in Northern Ireland suffered an invasion which killed over 100,000 fish, according to an AP report.

Earlier news, like this article from Barcelona Reporter, reported that researchers expected less jellyfish in Spain this year. However, populations of certain species are exploding in areas of low salinity, such as Denia. Besides Mauve Stingers, highly dangerous Portuguese Man 0’War – though not actually a jellyfish – have been spotted in the Atlantic off the coast of Asturias in Northern Spain.

For accounts of several jellyfish attacks in recent years from around the world, see the following article from AOL News:

When Jelly Goes Bad: 6 Recent Jellyfish Attacks

Image Source: Edited from LiveFileStore.com

One jellyfish in particular has discovered the perfect way to cheat death. The Turritopsis nutricula—which is actually a type of hydrozoa—can move back and forth through all stages of life. In other words, its mature adult jellyfish form can revert back to its polyp form (the first stage of life) and move forth again, and back again, and so forth. In theory, this transformation can happen an infinite number of times, thus rendering the jellyfish immortal. However, it has never been able to be tested in the wild because the process happens so quickly that proper field observations are unlikely to happen. There is also the problem of predators and disease that tend to kill this strange creature before the theory can even really be tested at all.

These adult jellyfish are extremely tiny. They have a maximum diameter of 4-5 millimeters (0.16-0.20 inches) and are generally as tall as they are wide. They are native to the Caribbean, but it would seem they have found a way to spread across the globe; most likely from ships that discharge ballast water in ports. Currently, scientists are studying this amazing form of marine life, trying to figure out what exactly gives it the ability to move back and forth between life cycles.

What would you do if you had the chance to be immortal?

By Heidi Marshall