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Another deep-seafood story: Alvin was used by Tjeerd van Andel and other Scripps scientists to visit the Galapagos ridge hydrothermal vents and study the ecosys

Another deep-seafood story: Alvin was used by Tjeerd van Andel and other Scripps scientists to visit the Galapagos ridge hydrothermal vents and study the ecosystem there. They found giant molluscs, each the size of a grapefruit. Recall that these organisms, living in an isolated ecosystem two miles underwater and visible through the windows of what was basically a wet spaceship were pretty much the closest we’ve come so far to finding aliens. The dive team harvested some, brought them to the surface, and… ate them for dinner. Apparently they were blood red like steak and had a strong mineral taste. They stopped after some other bright spark got out the Geiger counter — black smoker fauna accumulate unusual amounts of radiation. Apparently the dive site was named Clam Bake. I don’t know if the name came before or after the mega-mussel meal. Heaven help us if alien life on Europa is discovered by a hungry Dutchman.

bane 4y ago
I have no idea what the timing of this event is, but there's an interesting confluence of clams and aliens in the world that is almost hilarious off-topic, but I'll bring it up anyway. "Operation Clambake" (xenu.net) is a long running Norwegian site dedicated to shining light on some of the more egregious problems with the Church of Scientology. * note: some of the very first "Anonymous" protests were fomented on 4chan, advertised on xenu.net, and targeted notable Scientology buildings. I think the demonstrations (both physical and digital) were under the name "Project Chanology". It was some of this prototypical protest movement that was later co-opted and brought into the Q-anon movement. * note2: there's also some fascinating history involving the site w/r to SEO ranking and other google hacking activities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Clambake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Clambake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology
- vaidhy 4y ago
  I thought you were about to talk about Mother of Demons - one of my first intro to Baen Publishing where humans land on a planet (accidentally) populated by mollusk civilizations.
sph 4y ago
> The dive team harvested some, brought them to the surface, and… ate them for dinner. Reminds me of that story I heard on QI of British explorers wanting to take some of those giant tortoises they found, back to Britain. They tried many times but they didn't survive the travel: they were so delicious the sailors would eat them on the way home. It's taken 300 years to finally give them a scientific name.
fractallyte 4y ago
While physical and chemical analysis would reveal many of the characteristics of these molluscs, the description of how they looked and tasted was much more relatable: for me, it conveyed a lot more meaning...

bane 4y ago

I have no idea what the timing of this event is, but there's an interesting confluence of clams and aliens in the world that is almost hilarious off-topic, but I'll bring it up anyway. "Operation Clambake" (xenu.net) is a long running Norwegian site dedicated to shining light on some of the more egregious problems with the Church of Scientology. * note: some of the very first "Anonymous" protests were fomented on 4chan, advertised on xenu.net, and targeted notable Scientology buildings. I think the demonstrations (both physical and digital) were under the name "Project Chanology". It was some of this prototypical protest movement that was later co-opted and brought into the Q-anon movement. * note2: there's also some fascinating history involving the site w/r to SEO ranking and other google hacking activities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Clambake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Clambake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology

vaidhy 4y ago
I thought you were about to talk about Mother of Demons - one of my first intro to Baen Publishing where humans land on a planet (accidentally) populated by mollusk civilizations.

sph 4y ago

> The dive team harvested some, brought them to the surface, and… ate them for dinner. Reminds me of that story I heard on QI of British explorers wanting to take some of those giant tortoises they found, back to Britain. They tried many times but they didn't survive the travel: they were so delicious the sailors would eat them on the way home. It's taken 300 years to finally give them a scientific name.

fractallyte 4y ago

While physical and chemical analysis would reveal many of the characteristics of these molluscs, the description of how they looked and tasted was much more relatable: for me, it conveyed a lot more meaning...