Jellyfish--Vixens of the Sea

Jellyfish are probably some of the most bizarre, beautiful, and often annoying creatures of the ocean. My good friend and former roommate Courtney could sit, stare and sketch jellyfish while at the Aquarium for hours, and even has jellyfish tattoos on the side of her stomach. Because of her appreciation for these pretty critters, I dedicate this post to her.

Why are jellyfish so alluring despite their tendency to have painful greetings? Well, look at them. How many creatures do you know that are translucent and near transparent? Different jellyfish species are between 95 and 98% water, whereas us humans are a little over 60%. Another reason jellyfish are so pretty is probably because they are radically symmetrical, meaning both halves from the central axis mirror each other. Jellyfish do not have a brain, a respiratory system (breathing), a circulatory system (cycling materials, especially blood, around our body), or even an excretory system (filtering nutrients and getting rid of waste). Because of this, jellyfish actually go to the bathroom out of the same "hole" they take in food from.

Jellyfish don't even look like they should be alive with all their simplicities. Yet jellyfish, as a species, are older than the dinosaurs, and there's even thought to be an immortal jellyfish found (Thank you Christopher for showing me the article!). With so little inside their bodies, jellyfish must be pretty amazing at what they do in order to stay alive so long. Their "senses" consist of a neural net, "eyespots" detecting light from dark, and chemo-sensory pits that help detect prey. Jellyfish never stop growing, unlike us who typically tend to stop growing in high school after we've gone through sexual maturity. Without a respiratory system, jellyfish simply "breathe" in oxygen through their membrane-like skin. In order to swim, they use "jet propulsion" by taking in water through a muscular bell and shooting it out behind them. They aren't even fish, technically, because they don't have gills. Many scientists prefer to call them "sea jellies."

With no real internal organs or complex systems, you may wonder how jellyfish even reproduce. Well, jellyfish can reproduce sexually and asexually. Jellyfish are either born male or female, and each sex develops its eggs or sperm inside a pouch on their body. One fine day, the jellyfish will "throw up" their goods, and the goods pass from the stomach through the mouth. The eggs that stick to the lady jelly's mouth will be fertilized. The fertilized eggs become a planula, which is carried around ocean currents for quite some time until it is able to attach onto a surface and develop into a polyp. The polyp undergoes budding, which is like an asexual development of another polyp, and these polyps lead to the medusa stage. Some polyps actually split open through fission in order to become a medusa. Pretty weird, huh?

One jellyfish in particular, the box jellyfish, is known as the sea wasp. This little baby has 64 anuses (I'm serious) and 24 eyes, though they still can't really see. The box jellyfish is by far the most poisonous jellyfish, and it's sting can kill in 3 minutes. The amount of venom in one box jellyfish can kill up to 60 people. What's even more scary is that it can move at 2 meters.... per second. That means it would be pretty difficult to be stung and get back to shore. Thus, more people die from jellyfish attacks than sharks. Australians are well aware of this jellyfish, and they actually go swimming in regions where the jellyfish are located with women's pantyhose covering their arms and legs because the tentacles' little poison dart like nematocysts won't penetrate it. Additionally, their tentacles are near invisible and are pretty easy to get tangled up inside, which is why jellyfish are so good at finding prey despite the fact that most of them use ocean currents to get around. Think about how incredible it is that something so simple in form is not only alive, but has so much power and potential. Here we are, humans fully capable of adapting for life on every continent and have all kinds of fancy organs and systems, but some little thing that poops out of its mouth can cause us to stop breathing. It's pretty humbling to say the least.

Now that I've terrified you, know that most jellyfish species are not capable of killing you. A lot of jellyfish don't actually cause pain to humans because their stings are so subtle. Most of the ones who can noticeably sting you will not actually kill you, though they might make you whiney, and jellyfish are never aggressive. Jellyfish are just another one of the creatures on this planet that are beyond anything we could dream up, and reminds us that fact can indeed be strange than fiction.

Reflections on "Martian Child"

As I mentioned before with Avatar, my step dad and I love watching science fiction films together. My mom, however, is particularly restless and cannot sit through a movie. This trait made our only family trip to the theatre, that I can remember, to see Lord of the Rings particularly painful for her.

There's a film "Martian Child" that employs themes of science fiction, comedy and drama. The premise is that John Cusack's application for adoption finally comes through after his wife has passed, and he's not sure he has it in him to be a good parent. The child chosen for him by the adoption agent is a ten year-old boy who is convinced he's an alien from Mars and is thus why he stays under a box (as the sun is too bright) and wears a weight belt tying him to the ground made out of batteries. As John Cusack plays a famous science fiction writer, the pairing of these two is particularly amusing.

The three of us sat down to watch the film, and I'm glad we did. (My mom didn't get up once) There's a scene in particular when John Cusack is trying to talk to his new son. The kid's Andy Warhol social skills are making Cusack look like an inadequate parent to the adoption agency, especially when the kid steals from others in order to conduct his "mission" of documenting human life.

Here's what Cusack says: Dennis, can I just say one last thing about Mars? - which may be strange coming from a Science-Fiction writer - But right now, you and me here, put together entirely of atoms, sitting on this round rock with a core of liquid iron, held down by this force that seems to trouble you, called gravity, all the while spinning around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour and whizzing through the Milky Way at 600,000 miles an hour in a universe that very well may be chasing its own tail at the speed of light; And amidst all this frantic activity, fully cognisant of our own eminent demise - which is our own pretty way of saying we all know we're gonna die - We reach out to one another. Sometimes for the sake of entity, sometimes for reasons you're not old enough to understand yet, but a lot of the time we just reach out and expect nothing in return. Isn't that strange? Isn't that weird? Isn't that weird enough? The heck do ya need to be from Mars for?

It's surprising when John Cusack can express just how beautiful it is that we are pretty much parasites tearing up our very small corner of the universe, and our lives are pretty meaningless when you compare it to the rest of existence. For us to be alive amid all of this order and chaos is extraordinary enough. I guess when I become upset, lacking in confidence or defeated, I could think about how lucky I am to be a part of all of this--especially since I have no idea how to define "this" with so much out there I will never learn about. Our planet is a very small part of galaxy, and our galaxy is a part of an unknown array of other galaxies in some universe that is apparently constantly expanding. Even on our own planet, we have a lot to learn. There are species we haven't given names to, life in the ocean we are incapable of seeing because of our bodies' inability to withstand the ocean's pressure, ecological phenomenons and animal behavior we can't quite explain. Think about how much you know about the very place you life: how many plants can you name? what do you know about your own body? how does a computer work--really? It's overwhelming how limited we are despite our vast capabilities.

Revisiting Proust on a Night Bike Ride

Photo taken at the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica.

I haven't been myself lately. For one, I've had the whole water submerged, The Graduate listlessness of coming home from one life and not knowing how to find the next. Secondly, I'm preparing to move to a foreign country where I'll be completely on my own and speaking a language I can't quite grasp. And in all of these attempts to make plans and steps, I'm worried about a family illness that will be much more difficult to help out with when I'm across the ocean. Needless to say, I've been a bit off.

And in the football crazed, concrete, Baptist haven of Tomball, Texas, I haven't found much to confide these discomforts in. Thus, I decide to take a night bike ride. It's colder out now--the sticky heat of a Texan summer is beginning to pass, and I actually felt chills on my skin. Rather than the makeshift headlight I've created out of a headlamp on my bicycle, I rode in darkness. In the beginning of the ride, the stars were barely visible in the clouds.

I started thinking about living in France. And of all the things to think about, I started imagining all the good places I'd find for reading classic literature since I'll actually have free time. I thought about how I'll experience a different climate--how I'll see the trees change color and learn new names for the life around me.

I stopped after about 20 minutes to drink water, and I noticed the clouds were beginning to fade. And I realized I was cold--which was a relief; the heat seems to drive everyone mad. Then I noticed just how dark everything was. I had almost forgotten what darkness was--where everything bleeds together into one shadow and is somehow unrecognizable.

I guess we forget the brilliance of light or recognize the madness of heat until we are overwhelmed in darkness and or reminded of the cold. And in my anxieties of this summer, I started to learn more about the meaning of one of my favorite quotes from literature: Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c'est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l'esprit. Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind (Marcel Proust, Le Tempts Retrouvé, The Past Recaptured). All of this anxiety I feel is completely human, and my ability to confront, face and live with it will only allow me to see more of the beauty in my life.

If you're reading this and have something on your mind, I hope you'll find yourself on a night bike ride. Maybe a walk. A swim in a creek or river. Something that forces you to be alone outside in light or darkness, silence or sound.

Swamp Thing Unveiled

This picture was taken in November of 2009 on an Ecology and Evolution field trip with Dr. White at Loyola University. The canoe trips with Dr. White were one of the greatest aspects of my college education. I encourage anyone curious enough to find a way to take a guided canoe trip in the wetlands.

I was blessed enough to visit New Orleans once again. After having driven from Houston through Beaumont, I was a little grumpy from driving. Once my passenger and I reached the bridges past Lake Charles, we both were instantly relieved at the sight of the wetlands. And it's strange; swamps are generally thought to be horrifying places where diseases brew in infested insects and swamp monsters emerge. The muck and overgrown plants, the seemingly dirty water--it's not as easy on the eyes as a Florida beach. So why was I so relieved to see such a creepy place?

Miami beaches used to be mangroves. (mangroves are like salt-water swamps) It takes a lot of unnatural maintenance and landscaping to convert mangroves into sandy beaches, and is part of why Florida gets so torn up over hurricanes--mangroves and swamps help serve as natural hurricane protection. Beaches can be as creepy as swamps in their own way, as they often get in the way of the natural balances in nature.

Upon the "Bienvenue à Louisiane" sign is also a message to protect Louisiana's coast. Louisiana may not have artificially pristine beaches like Florida, but they do have something incredibly valuable and increasingly endangered. The wetlands surrounding the cities of Louisiana are the same wetlands that Jean Lafitte, a famous pirate in American History, smuggled imports and tricked the British in the Battle of New Orleans. These wetlands carry the sounds of porch music; they house fishermen who live by seasons of invertebrates rather than climate. Louisiana, and especially New Orleans, has such a unique culture that is bred within these peculiar ecosystems that most other people are afraid of.

Anyone who canoes out into the wetlands and watches a sunset can feel just how beautiful a swamp or marsh can be. (Remember: wetlands are literally characterized by permanent flooding. A swamp is mostly water, cypresses, etc. A marsh is full of grasses and water. Swamps and marshes make up the wetlands)

Beyond the beauty and cultural value of the wetlands, wetlands also have quite a few natural perks.

For one, they serve as "sponges" by absorbing and storing water, gradually releasing water; thereby, this process of water storage helps prevent flooding, reduces erosion, and "mixes" water and its components (like soil, debris from plants, etc) so that it flows easier. Thus, there's less hurricane damage, less flooding, less property damage, and healthier ecosystems surrounding the wetlands. Compare this to Miami beaches in which the National Guard has to build up sand bars (which costs A LOT) in order to keep the hotels from literally eroding away. Even in New Orleans East, neighborhoods have been built by drying out wetlands and have shortly ended due to the tendency for flooding.

While the wetlands absorb all of this water, the wetlands are also filtering and cleaning the water. All of the nasty fertilizers, septic tank debris, manure and who knows what are filtered through the abundant plant life and are removed from the water itself. This natural filtration process is so successful that some artificial wetlands have been built in order to treat storm and waste water.

Though the wetlands look like a big green and brown mess, they have an incredibly large array of ecological diversity comparable to a coral reef or rain forest. The balance of life in the wetlands creates an abundance of diverse habitats, allowing for energy to move from plants to small fish and crustaceans, to larger fish, reptiles and even humans. All of this life contributes to fishing industries that help keep Louisiana communities alive.

Consider some of these interesting facts about wetlands from the Environmental Protection Agency:

• In 1991 wetland-related eco-tourism activities such as hunting, fishing, bird-watching, and photography added approximately $59 billion to the national economy. (i.e. if the beauty of wetlands don't convince you of their worth, wetlands are valuable economically through tourism)

• According to the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, almost $79 billion per year is generated from wetland-dependent species, or about 71 percent of the nation’s entire $111 billion commercial and recreational fishing industry in 1997. (Again, wetlands are valuable economically.)

• An acre of wetland can store 1–1.5 million gallons of floodwater. (Wetlands are pretty good at what they do)

• Up to one-half of North American bird species nest or feed in wetlands. (Proof of wetland's biodiversity)

• Although wetlands keep only about 5 percent of the land surface in the conterminous United States, they are home to 31 percent of our plant species. (Biodiversity again)

• Seventy-five percent of commercially harvested fish are wetland-dependent. Add shellfish species and that number jumps to 95 percent. (Biodiversity and economy!)

So. Swamps may not be the ideal location for your next summer vacation. They are, however, beautiful and ecologically productive ecosystems that we should work to protect. Preserving the wetlands preserves the unique Louisiana cultures, the Louisiana economy, biodiversity, property values, esthetic value and helps clean our water. Perhaps the real Swamp Things we should fear are the lumber industries that clear cut the wetlands, the oil industries that trash our wetlands and our own selves for not standing up for these beautiful places.

If you want to find out how to help the wetlands, try the Gulf Restoration Network.

Live Life Like a Sea Turtle

Meet Margot, a baby green sea turtle found by fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. After a particularly cold winter, this critter was too young to swim into deeper waters to stay warm and thereby froze in shallow water. The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans took her in and helped her get back on her feet, or so to speak.

I've found it increasingly difficult to fall asleep lately. I'm sure part of it is being out of school and its rhythm, while part of it is just that there's so many things to think about.

On these nights, I sometimes bring a pillow and blanket into the living room to watch the National Geographic, Discovery, or Animal Planet channel. One night in particular I decided to watch the program entitled "Oceans," which isn't too surprising.

Though I am calmed by watching sharks, eels, grumpy sea lions and orcas, I didn't expect a segment on precious little sea turtles to disturb and depress me for weeks.

I don't think anyone can deny that sea turtles are cute. They swim gracefully, and seeing them while snorkeling or diving is surreal. So when I saw the cutest little baby sea turtles hatching, I was pretty excited. Unfortunately, a few other critters were excited that the eggs were hatching, too because several different birds were waiting for a baby turtle to make its way out of the nest. Almost every baby turtle was either eaten by a bird or raccoon near the nest. Some of them were actually eaten by a terrifying salt water crocodile. These turtles are barely even alive and haven't actually become "sea" turtles yet since they haven't been given the chance to reach the sea.

Needless to say, I was upset for weeks. Every time I read about the sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico, I'd get so sick thinking of how much they went through just to live past infancy and how much I hated birds, raccoons and crocodiles for eating innocent turtles.

Once I calmed down, however, I knew it was unhealthy to have something bother me so much. As with anything else, it only gets worse when you try not to think about it. So, I started reading up on sea turtles.

At first, it made it worse. If a sea turtle makes it through the surf for the first time, according to biologist James R. Spotila, it still has less than a 50% chance of survival. The more I read, however, the more I fell in love with sea turtles.

For instance, the sex of a sea turtle isn't determined the way humans are. Humans, as we all know, can inherit either an X or Y chromosome from their father and will become either male or female (technically speaking). Turtle gender is determined by the temperature of the egg during incubation. By this, I mean if an egg incubates at 82º F, he will become a male. If the egg incubates at 88º F, she will become a female. This even means that the position of eggs in the nest can determine what gender the egg will become, as eggs in the center are often warmer than the bordering eggs. Furthermore, if a storm passes through during the middle third of incubation, thereby lowering the temperature of the nest, eggs previously developing into females will become males. How absurd is that?

Additionally, sea turtles' brains contain magnetite, which is an iron compound. Because of this, sea turtles can sense the earth's magnetic field since the magnetite is drawn towards the North Pole. It's like having a compass built in to your brain. This is why female turtles will often find the beach they were born on to lay their eggs many years later (sea turtles often don't lay their first eggs until they are 35--sounds good to me, too).

Despite how cool sea turtles are, there are still very few of them that make it into juveniles. On top of that, beach tourism destroys turtle nesting sites and overfishing makes it difficult for many turtles to survive.

Yet, when turtles are able to live, they really do live. Sea turtles well outlive humans and can live to be over 150 years old! In fact, the Galapagos turtle named Harriet that Darwin brought back on the 1835 Beagle voyage lived to be 176 and only recently died in 2006. Take a moment to think about that. This turtle is older than Darwin's Origin of Species--a book that single handedly altered our understanding of how things change over time. But that ridiculous turtle lived through all of it. The oldest living turtle on record was a 250 year old from the Kolkata Zoo in India. Imagine if we were able to live that long--we would be able to see so much more of the world and do so much more with our lives. Turtles are creatures that may have to truly fight in order to live, but still they live more fully than humans do. Our average lifespan is only around 72 years, yet we spend a large part of it not aware of how lucky we are to be alive.

What can I take away from this besides cool turtle facts? For one, it's hard caring about the world. The more you read and learn, the more you feel incapable of helping all the things that are wrong. However, if we ignore the world and try not to think about it, we only feel worse. By choosing to educate ourselves and face the things that make us uncomfortable, the stronger we are in facing problems and the more beauty we'll stumble upon. Secondly, since sea turtles have to fight a lot harder than we do in order to live, we might as well live life more fully.

Want to read more about these bad asses? I got most of my information in James R. Spotila's book here

Stars as Ghosts

This sweet little fellow is a Yucatan Banded Gecko. He is one of the many beautiful things you can find only at night while being quiet and still. My class spotted him while in the Coxcomb Jaguar Sanctuary in Belize. Sooo cute!

Today, I realized I was homesick for New Orleans. It's a strange feeling--I can't remember ever longing for a "home," I've never even felt like I had a home since my family moved around a lot when I was younger. I often miss family and friends when I go to new places, but never do I miss an entire place or a collective group of people. Sure enough, I began to miss riding my bike to Neutral Ground coffeehouse to read, drink a pot of tea, listen to live music and talk with some of the most intriguing people. I missed my front porch and the dynamic of my old house with roommates who couldn't have been more perfect. I missed red beans and rice Mondays, sunsets over the wetlands and Cajun accents.

After having realized what I was feeling, I decided to take a bike ride through my dad's neighborhood to clear my head. Often times, people take a "drive" when they're upset. Bike riding, however, lets you feel the night breeze, hear the crickets and frogs, catch glimpses of families of deer, get exercise and look up at the Texas night sky. Surely these things are more cleansing than the stressful and eco-inefficient catharsis of driving.

And, though I still miss New Orleans, I couldn't believe how open and clear the sky was on this evening bike ride. I hadn't seen the stars while I was in New Orleans, as the city lights and life were always burning into the night. While looking up, I started to wonder why so many people can feel comforted and overwhelmed by the stars.

What exactly are stars? I know they're burning balls of gas, and that they're huge and [in a galaxy] far, far away. I know looking into them is like looking back in time, as it takes a long time for the light of the stars to reach us here on earth. One of my friends once told me if we were to put a giant mirror far out with the stars, we'd be able to look back in time on earth, too. To be precise, stars are giant balls of gas held together by their own gravity. Gravity, keep in mind, is that physical law that gives weight and pressure in order to keep things in tact. There are phases in a star's life characterized by the gravitation forces keeping it together and its interaction with the pressure of hot gas and/or radiation from inside the star's core.

As I was riding my bike tonight, I was amazed by how much I could actually see despite the lack of streetlights in a heavily wooded neighborhood. So I began to ask myself why it is that stars shine and how stars can produce light that burns bright enough to be seen 4.3+ light years away. The answer: nuclear fusion. Fusion is the process in which lighter atoms combine with one another to form heavier atoms. Think about relationships. Nuclear fusion is like when two formerly single people get together and form one union. Two is bigger (heavier) than one, and this process of uniting can expel a whole lotta energy (passion, love, what have you). So because stars are literally giant hot burning balls of gas, the converting of energy (nuclear fusion) releases a whole lot of excess energy that we on earth see as light. Depending on the temperature in the center a star, fusion can happen through a number of ways. This is like how we have different understandings of love and relationships at different ages and levels of maturity in our lives: we may all be people just as stars are always stars, but all things are constantly changing.

As far as the night sky being a literal map of history, our galaxy (Milky Way) is about 100,000 light years across. Since light travels at 186,000 miles (3oo,oookm) per second, it can take light from the stars tens of thousands of years to reach us on earth. Even more so, stars outside of our galaxy can take up to millions of years to see . Quasars, the farthest stars we can see, can take billions of years to see. Thus, a lot of what we see in the night sky are ghosts--that is, mere reflections of what is no longer alive.

So. If you start to feel homesick, stressed or maybe just in need of fresh air, I suggest taking a night bike ride. Even if you can't see the stars from where you live, try to listen for all the sounds you hear. What do you find comforting in the night?

And, if you want to learn more about the stars, I read up on the stars for my blog entry at nasa's education page here.

Happy Shark Week!

This precious baby above is a Sand Tiger shark. He looks quite vicious, as his mouth is constantly open and bears quite a few nasty teeth. This type of shark, however, is particularly harmless and non-aggressive. Additionally, their jaws are not built to eat large creatures, and they'd rather not have to take multiple bites for a meal. They keep their mouth open in order to breathe underwater and will only attack humans if provoked. They are the only shark known to gulp air, as storing air in their stomachs allow them to float still in the water, making it easier to catch unsuspecting fish. Looks can be deceiving no matter what species. (Personal photo taken at the Georgia Aquarium--a place of dreams)

Does else anyone think it's curious that millions of people across the nation (and quite possibly the world) take time out of their days during a singular summer week to watch educational programs about sharks?

Today I sat down with a young five-year-old girl who I have been trying to teach Star Wars and marine science to. This young lady particularly likes television shows such as Spongebob Squarepants. While the animation is colorful and arguably quite beautiful, I find myself a bit agitated at the improbability of it all. Life underwater would not be able to contain crabby patties or the same terrestrial laws of physics, nor should children think it possible to make jelly out of jellyfish.

I flipped off the cartoons and turned on the Discovery channel, as my friends have been wishing me a happy Shark Week. Most of the dialogue was inarticulate for a five year old to follow, but the show itself showed a group of divers trying to prove that sharks are not the cold blooded killers we often think them to be. The stars of this episode in particular were great white sharks, who have been known to be more aggressive than other species. Kennin, the young girl, was confused as to why the sharks didn't eat the divers. I explained to her that people don't go around eating everything in sight that they see, though Kennin confessed that she is hungry all the time. We are constantly surrounded with things that are "edible" in a sense: tv remotes, couches, tables, books. We do not, however, think of these items as appetizing. Sharks do not think humans are particularly enticing, and sharks mostly do not voluntarily choose to taste a human. In fact, sharks are not the voracious eaters we always imagine them to be. Rather, they are sort of like vultures and often eat the dead and dying fish instead. This isn't to say that sharks are lazy; Rather, sharks help maintain healthy ecosystem balances and are dire parts of oceanic life.

Reports of shark attacks are almost always accounts of sharks being under stress or mistaking a human for another creature. It is advisable to not go swimming in the ocean when one is wounded, as sharks can detect such stress from quite a distance and will indeed seek to "clean up" their territory. When sharks do bite, however, they usually don't take much more than one bite; humans are not particularly delicious. Unfortunately, one bite from a large jaw with rows upon rows of sharp teeth can do a lot of damage. Sharks are not going to seek out innocent and unsuspecting humans, but there are precautions humans should take when in shark territories.

As the program progressed, Kennin thought it interesting that the divers would swat their hands at the shark who swam towards the diver. I explained to her how the diver is telling the shark that he (the diver) is not to be messed with. These divers study sharks for a living and know how to read shark behavior. That's why when the shark showed the divers his teeth, the divers decided to leave the water and respect the shark's territory. Like most animals, barring one's teeth is a sign of threat or aggression.

The grand finale in the program consisted of a female great white shark revealing her stomach to a snorkeler. This behavior is an act of submission, or like a hand shake as I explained to Kennin. The shark then allowed the snorkeler to hold onto her fin and swim 75' with her--just like a trained dolphin might. Kennin understood this as the shark and snorkeler becoming friends, and I was awe-struck by this friendship.

Sharks are creatures that date back before the dinosaurs, and they are some of the most feared and misunderstood creatures on this planet. Though I recognize many of the Shark Week programs are about shark attack survivors and often dramatize shark's predator capabilities, I am incredibly thankful that the discovery channel can help people rethink their understanding of what sharks are. The ocean stretches over 2/3rds of our earth, and sharks are the ones who regulate and control the water. That means sharks are much more influential than we might think; as stewards of the earth, it is our responsibility to ensure that they are treated with the same delicacy and respect that we give to all life.

Shark Video : Here is a trailer for a Shark documentary that seeks to help people better understand sharks' roles in our world. They are becoming increasingly threatened by humans' fear of and disinterest in their well-being. By seeking to learn more about the worlds' odd inhabitants, however, we begin to see how dependent humans are on the intricate balances maintained by all forms of life.