4 ms·

That is a pretty horrifying prospect > “Another interesting thing we discovered is a set of genes called ‘zot’ genes, which causes leaky gut syndrome,” said Mi

That is a pretty horrifying prospect > “Another interesting thing we discovered is a set of genes called ‘zot’ genes, which causes leaky gut syndrome,” said Mincer. “If a fish eats a piece of plastic and gets infected by this Vibrio, which then results in a leaky gut and diarrhoea, it’s going to release waste nutrients such nitrogen and phosphate that could stimulate sargassum growth and other surrounding organisms.”

ricksunny 3y ago
Not sure I understand that particular concern of the researcher's - in the absence of such a development, what would you suppose happens to nitrogen & phosphorus that had been hitherto sequestered in the fish's body structure once it completes its lifecycle / becomes dinner for a bigger fish? Does it stay in progressively bigger fish species' biomass, forever? Do the fish ordinarily migrate away from the sargassum as they finish their lifecycle, depositing their bioaccumulated nitrogen & phophorus elsewhere?
- dflock 3y ago
  They either get eaten, or fall to the ocean floor, ~4,000m down.
  - DoctorOetker 3y ago
    Then all those dead floating fish I and others have seen, mostly in pictures, but sometimes in real life must have been a grand collective illusion? I wonder what the terminal velocity of a dead, but not yet inflating, fish would be. I presume it would be only marginally heavier then water, with quite a lot of friction in water. If they didn't get recycled in the bio-sphere, and didn't float I'd expect pictures of the ocean floor to look like a weird nightmarish Hieronymus Bosch painting of a thick layer of dead but intact fish.
    - dflock 3y ago
      Depending on where and how they die, dead fish float briefly because of gas created by bacterial decay, but sink after a rupture, or a few days. Many dead fish will get eaten as they fall through the water column. Things that sink all that way to the bottom of the ocean do still get recycled by the biosphere - but the biosphere at the bottom, which is only connected tenuously and very slowly with the surface - most of the carbon etc... will stay down there for a very long time. > I'd expect pictures of the ocean floor to look like a weird nightmarish Hieronymus Bosch painting of a thick layer of dead but intact fish. Not intact for long, because the seafloor has lots of scavengers, but yes, this is pretty accurate - see Whalefall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall and Marine Snow: > About three-quarters of the deep ocean floor is covered in this thick, smooth ooze. The ooze collects as much as six meters every million years. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/marinesnow.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/marinesnow.html
DoreenMichele 3y ago
I don't know what they mean. Leaky gut is a hypothetical medical condition, not officially recognized, in which the intestines can absorb larger molecules than normal, compromising gut health. It doesn't necessarily automatically suggest diarrhea, though that can be one symptom or outcome. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22724-leaky-gut-syndrome https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22724-leaky-g...
- Jeff_Brown 3y ago
  I knew an old man who had a literally leaky gut. A liquid that smelled like pee somehow surfaced from his abdomen onto the skin. (He wasn't peeing on himself; if he had been it would have gotten other places, and it didn't.)
  - projektfu 3y ago
    Patent urachus perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urachal_fistula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urachal_fistula

ricksunny 3y ago

Not sure I understand that particular concern of the researcher's - in the absence of such a development, what would you suppose happens to nitrogen & phosphorus that had been hitherto sequestered in the fish's body structure once it completes its lifecycle / becomes dinner for a bigger fish? Does it stay in progressively bigger fish species' biomass, forever? Do the fish ordinarily migrate away from the sargassum as they finish their lifecycle, depositing their bioaccumulated nitrogen & phophorus elsewhere?

dflock 3y ago
They either get eaten, or fall to the ocean floor, ~4,000m down.
- DoctorOetker 3y ago
  Then all those dead floating fish I and others have seen, mostly in pictures, but sometimes in real life must have been a grand collective illusion? I wonder what the terminal velocity of a dead, but not yet inflating, fish would be. I presume it would be only marginally heavier then water, with quite a lot of friction in water. If they didn't get recycled in the bio-sphere, and didn't float I'd expect pictures of the ocean floor to look like a weird nightmarish Hieronymus Bosch painting of a thick layer of dead but intact fish.
  - dflock 3y ago
    Depending on where and how they die, dead fish float briefly because of gas created by bacterial decay, but sink after a rupture, or a few days. Many dead fish will get eaten as they fall through the water column. Things that sink all that way to the bottom of the ocean do still get recycled by the biosphere - but the biosphere at the bottom, which is only connected tenuously and very slowly with the surface - most of the carbon etc... will stay down there for a very long time. > I'd expect pictures of the ocean floor to look like a weird nightmarish Hieronymus Bosch painting of a thick layer of dead but intact fish. Not intact for long, because the seafloor has lots of scavengers, but yes, this is pretty accurate - see Whalefall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall and Marine Snow: > About three-quarters of the deep ocean floor is covered in this thick, smooth ooze. The ooze collects as much as six meters every million years. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/marinesnow.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/marinesnow.html

DoreenMichele 3y ago

I don't know what they mean. Leaky gut is a hypothetical medical condition, not officially recognized, in which the intestines can absorb larger molecules than normal, compromising gut health. It doesn't necessarily automatically suggest diarrhea, though that can be one symptom or outcome. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22724-leaky-gut-syndrome https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22724-leaky-g...

Jeff_Brown 3y ago
I knew an old man who had a literally leaky gut. A liquid that smelled like pee somehow surfaced from his abdomen onto the skin. (He wasn't peeing on himself; if he had been it would have gotten other places, and it didn't.)
- projektfu 3y ago
  Patent urachus perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urachal_fistula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urachal_fistula