Below the Edge of Darkness, Edith Widder (1951-), 2021, 329 pages, Dewey 551.46092, ISBN 9780525509240. 9.5" x 6.25" x 1.25".
Autobiographical account Below the Edge of Darkness, Edith Widder (1951-), 2021, 329 pages, Dewey 551.46092, ISBN 9780525509240. 9.5" x 6.25" x 1.25".
Autobiographical account of seeking bioluminescent deep-sea creatures.
[image]
The edge of darkness, the ocean depth at which a tiny bit of light can just be detected looking straight up--a bit of dark gray surrounded by black--may be at less than 300 to more than 2000 feet deep on a sunny day, depending on biomass density. pp. 259, 278. The edge of darkness rises as the sun sets. And with it, an entire population of ocean animals rises toward the surface for the night.
Plants can exist only in the upper strata of the ocean, where there's enough sunlight for photosynthesis: roughly the top 650 feet. p. 217. Whether you eat plants, or you eat planteaters, or you eat planteater-eaters, you need to go up to feed. Do it at night, so you won't be seen and eaten.
Bioluminescence is everywhere in the deep ocean. Ocean animals have sophisticated variable-illumination lighting on their undersides, so that their shadows aren't visible from below, against the dim sunlight.
"Before any of the funding agencies would consider financial support, they wanted to know what, exactly, I would discover." p. 184.
[image]
The author's team made videorecordings of live giant squids in the wild. Eyes the size of basketballs. (2012, south of Japan; 2019, Gulf of Mexico.) pp. 245-246, 265-267, 271, 14th-15th photo pages. Here's her TED talk about it: https://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/373978...
[image]
In Humboldt squid fights, size largely determines who's the diner and who's the dinner. p. 281.
The Georges Bank, off the New England coast, was fished out by 1994, when fishing was banned: too late. What came back was not fish but a sea of jellyfish--which eat fish larvae, and which better tolerate sewage and acidic oceans. pp. 288-290.
There are five stages of seasickness: 1 denial 2 nausea 3 feeding the fish 4 you're afraid you're going to die 5 you're afraid you're not going to die. People have had to be physically restrained to keep them from jumping overboard to end their misery. p. 186.
"Many may claim that getting a Ph.D. is as easy as riding a bike … through a desert, with no sleep, while people in black robes try to distract you by setting your hair on fire." Widder, by contrast, loved grad school. p. 64. "According to the rules of credit and blame in research, success is attributed to the supervisory brilliance of the adviser, and failure to the utter incompetence of the grad student or postdoc." p. 127.
"Success in life depends on how well you handle Plan B. Anyone can handle Plan A." --Jim Sullivan. "If you're not failing occasionally, I'll think you aren't reaching far enough." --David Packard. p. 193.
Chicks in Chainmail, Esther Friesner, editor, 1995, 341 pages, ISBN 0671876821
Anthology of swords-and-sorcery stories with female protagonists and a hChicks in Chainmail, Esther Friesner, editor, 1995, 341 pages, ISBN 0671876821
Anthology of swords-and-sorcery stories with female protagonists and a humorous modern twist. All were first published in this volume. First in a series of 6 books: https://www.goodreads.com/series/2396...
Lady of Steel, Roger Zelazny. Impostor. ***
And Ladies of the Club, Elizabeth Moon. Tax time. ***
Thomas Ray
>
Books:
sami
(9)
Loading...
