GIANT BALLS OF SNOT

Time for your Science News of the Day! For a long time scientists have been puzzled about how there can be life at the bottom of the ocean without enough carbon produced there to support it. Now the secret is out--it's snot. Giant balls of snot.

Don't you love scientists? Can you imagine some oceanographer doing his PhD thesis--"Ocean Floor Lifeforms and their Relation to Giant Balls of Snot."

According to an article in the June 9 issue of the journal "Science," there are some ocean creatures called giant larvaceans who produce big bubbles of mucus and live inside them. The bubble filters out gunk the larvaceans don't want but is porous enough to let in small bits of food. After some time, the thing gets clogged up and the creature moves out and blows itself another one. The old bubble collapses and sinks to the bottom of the ocean--hence their name, "sinkers." And on its way, small sea creatures and bits of plants get stuck to it, and get carried along to the bottom.

"A sinker is basically snot," one of the scientists explained. "It's very fragile. We have very skilled ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) pilots and special containers to collect these things, but we're only able to collect one out of four."

Naturally. Anybody who has ever had a kid knows all about snot bubbles. Touch one, and it falls apart and oozes down the kid's upper lip. Have you ever tried to COLLECT one?

Can you imagine getting a research grant for fooling around in the ocean and collecting snot bubbles?

The odd thing is that these scientists set out traps to see if they could find the source of the carbon, but they kept finding this slimy gunk instead. "People checking the traps would find this weird goop in the trap, and consider it to be contamination and throw it out," one of the scientists admits. It took a while before it dawned on someone--"Hey, maybe we ought to see what this stuff is."

And the Nobel Prize for Science goes to. . . . the discoverer of Giant Balls of Snot.