The Creatures That Thrive in the Pacific Garbage Patch

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Real Science

Real Science

8 місяців тому

Watch the additional video I made about the sacred pact between orcas and humans that allowed them to work together to hunt off the coast of Australia: nebula.tv/videos/realscience-...
Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/realscience-...
Patreon: / realscience
Instagram: / stephaniesammann
Images Courtesy of Getty Images
Thanks to Dr. Rebecca Helm
Credits:
Narrator: Stephanie Sammann
Writer: Lorraine Boissoneault
Editor: Dylan Hennessy (www.behance.net/dylanhennessy1)
Illustrator: Jacek Ambrożewski
Illustrator/Animator: Kirtan Patel (kpatart.com/illustrations)
Animator: Mike Ridolfi (www.moboxgraphics.com/)
Sound: Graham Haerther (haerther.net)
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster ( / forgottentowel )
Producer: Brian McManus ( / realengineering )
REFERENCES
[1] www.americanoceans.org/facts/...
[2] oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/s...
[3] www.google.com/books/edition/...
[4] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
[5] www.keybiscayne.fl.gov/news_d...
[6] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
[7] journals.plos.org/plosbiology...
[8] link.springer.com/article/10....
[9] www.int-res.com/articles/meps...
[10] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...]
[11] www.nature.com/articles/s4155...
[12] www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
[13] pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021...
[14] journals.plos.org/plosbiology...
[15] www.sciencedirect.com/science...

КОМЕНТАРІ: 1 200
@cyrilio
@cyrilio 8 місяців тому
Based on this video it seems clear to me that it’s much better to prevent further pollution. River cleanup and preventing more plastics from getting in to nature is essential.
@eddiebendigo7317
@eddiebendigo7317 8 місяців тому
Most of us didn't need a video to reach that conclusion
@cepelinai123
@cepelinai123 8 місяців тому
You are so clever
@martyvimislik813
@martyvimislik813 8 місяців тому
Are you slow 😢
@suaemp4488
@suaemp4488 8 місяців тому
@@eddiebendigo7317 OP probably had that conclusion earlier and communicated in that commenct that now he/she is sure. there's no need for trying to boost your ego by trying to demean someone under their neutral comment. if you agree with the OP you should be happy that there are more people like you now. otherwise you can push them away from getting to the truth. unless you want to.
@kayned47
@kayned47 8 місяців тому
I know the planet is heating up faster than it ever has but surely there's animals and other life forms that will thrive on the warmer climate
@kamiwriterleonardo6345
@kamiwriterleonardo6345 7 місяців тому
This video is the definition of "Life, uh, finds a way." Still best to not overpollute.
@efhi
@efhi 3 місяці тому
Liberals will say "hey it helps the animals, why stop?"
@bluecollarmenproductions
@bluecollarmenproductions 3 місяці тому
@@efhino…
@thomaster8870
@thomaster8870 3 місяці тому
@@efhi Please stop giving the gun-toting open carry nutjob televangelists any more ammunition.
@xyrus85
@xyrus85 3 місяці тому
@@efhispeak for yourself
@McChimkin123
@McChimkin123 2 місяці тому
​@@efhi Stop linking things that have nothing to do with politics to politics. You are making yourself look bad.
@hilestoby2628
@hilestoby2628 8 місяців тому
Before there were plastics, people would have glass bottles given to them and they would be refilled by the company for later reuse. Many of the plastic items today are from single-use items. If we gradually transition and find alternatives to plastic single use items, I think it can go a long way in reducing garbage in waterways leading to the oceans.
@tektrixter
@tektrixter 8 місяців тому
The reason that single-use items are replaced reusable is that they are more profitable - corporations externalize the cost of the waste generated to the environment, governments, and public. I have found the root cause to much of the worlds problems are neoliberalism (aka Reaganomics) and corporate control of government.
@jamesusespivot
@jamesusespivot 8 місяців тому
The problem is a culture disposability, not plastics themselves. Plastics were originally intended for use as long term reusable or durable items such as lunchboxes or telephones. A modern example would be a fridge, tough and sturdy and have a lifespan of 10-15 years; or perhaps my gaming laptop, mostly tough plastic but I don't plan on throwing it away anytime soon. In fact despite the plastic bag being invented in 1960, it wasn't used widely until after a conference in 1985 by the Society of Plastic Engineers, where a single speaker pointed out that using plastic bags would save money over paper bags. Remember that it also costs energy and pollution to make hard metal objects. For sturdy durable items intended for long term use, using plastic can actually be better for the environment than other materials. Likewise glass is an excellent material for reuse and can be recycled indefinitely, but in many countries glass goes directly to landfill and as a result glass production makes 86M tonnes of CO2 a year. Once again the problem is not glass, but a culture of disposability.
@sk9c00
@sk9c00 8 місяців тому
From a medical perspective, new plastic syringes have wayy less 'psychological' chance of disease transmission vs reusable blunt glass/metal syringes....
@twilightgardenspresentatio6384
@twilightgardenspresentatio6384 8 місяців тому
Let’s go back to glass wax, wood and metals. Save plastic for the medical field
@andrebrito9337
@andrebrito9337 8 місяців тому
Glass is better for health and environment than plastic
@Embassy_of_Jupiter
@Embassy_of_Jupiter 8 місяців тому
Between this, ocean farming, iron fertilization, fuel/plastics from algae, seabed mining, methane clathrate, nuclear power barges, cybertecture (seacrete/biorock) and seasteading, there is a nice oceanpunk scifi book to be written.
@NathanDudani
@NathanDudani 8 місяців тому
Waterworld
@suicidalmemester23
@suicidalmemester23 8 місяців тому
This is important for our culture and survival, someone get on this
@Echo81Rumple83
@Echo81Rumple83 8 місяців тому
Oceanpunk? Now there's an interesting subgenre of sci-fi right next to solarpunk :3
@Embassy_of_Jupiter
@Embassy_of_Jupiter 8 місяців тому
@@NathanDudani I was thinking more futuristic. Like Waterworld 50-100 years in the future where prosperity has returned somewhat.
@Embassy_of_Jupiter
@Embassy_of_Jupiter 8 місяців тому
@@Echo81Rumple83 Yeah I was thinking about if it should be a subgenre of solarpunk or not be too concerned with sustainability. It probably would be more interesting to have a solarpunk faction and a non-solarpunk faction at odds with each other. Like they are constantly fighting over whaling, seabed mining, fossil fuels etc.. Then you have corpos monopolizing space. But you can't escape the planet because of Kessler syndrome, space debris making it impractical to send anything into space. You can only send stuff down to earth in heavily armored droppods. Elon Musk's 3rd clone dropped a bunch of water rich asteroids and comets on Earth and that's why everything is under water lmao. Probably over a dispute with the SEC or something. Then you'd probably have the "landers" that try to rebuild all the continents, but with rafts. Initially they mass produce them and just let them randomly float around, which pisses off everyone else because it makes it impossible and dangerous to navigate. And then there's the transhumans trying to adapt to aquatic life by splicing their genes with whales or something. And also AI has enabled us to talk to whales and they turn out to be much smarter but less industrious than us. They just came to the conclusion that the meaning of life is literally just vibing. And it turns out they are generally just uncooperative jerks (at least the orcas), constantly messing with people they have no respect for. The whaling also doesn't help with their attitude. Then there's militant human whale activists that try to arm the whales lmao. And also after learning how to bring back mammoths, they brought back a bunch of different animals like mosasaurs and megalodons by splicing whatever fossilized proteins they could sequence into existing animals. Because why not.
@GeoffryGifari
@GeoffryGifari 8 місяців тому
I've also heard of fungus that lives on the remains of chernobyl the sheer persistence of life is amazing
@PedroHenrique-hv4sj
@PedroHenrique-hv4sj 8 місяців тому
there are other animals that live in Chernobyl like dogs, deer and other small animals
@Dandelion_Stitches
@Dandelion_Stitches 8 місяців тому
@@PedroHenrique-hv4sj Yeah. Cancer rates and other health issues in the area's animal populations is still substantially higher than in other areas, so it's not like it's a great place for them individually. But while humans would find that sort of scenario intolerable, the relative protection of the area means net population growth for a lot of species. Not so great for birds though.
@JadeMythriil
@JadeMythriil 8 місяців тому
@@Dandelion_Stitches cancer isn't usually a problem for animals with rather short lifespans, especially prey animals that might get eaten by predators within a year after they're born. Its only generally a problem for longer living creatures like humans who end up building up a high amount of cancer cells that would become a problem later in life.
@MattttG3
@MattttG3 8 місяців тому
Don’t forget! Fungi are like humans; they actually “breathe “ in oxygen whereas all of plants “breathe” in carbon dioxide 😊 Fungi is a class of their own. Without them, we wouldn’t have had a chance to exist
@AnEagle
@AnEagle 8 місяців тому
@@Dandelion_Stitches If I'm not wrong, I think Chernobyl is actually quite good for animals, as the cancer rarely effects them, and the absence of humans just let them be alone
@--Paws--
@--Paws-- 8 місяців тому
The irony of that bacteria being mass reproduced is the potential takeover of that specific bacteria; an outbreak of it might be a hinderance to somethings people need plastic for. It might also out grow its trait of eating/digesting plastic and become something else instead.
@deauthorsadeptus6920
@deauthorsadeptus6920 8 місяців тому
In past we thought about "grey goo" apocalypse. Now we have a possibility to witness what happens when you have plastic eating antibiotic resistant bacteria in a world where plastic is everywhere and antibiotics are main line of defence.
@SirNuk3
@SirNuk3 8 місяців тому
plastic rust
@theguyfromsaturn
@theguyfromsaturn 8 місяців тому
My guess is that it will be a hinderance to tech, but should not be an apocalyptic scenario. Remember, there was once a time when lignin could not be digested by bacteria. That's how we ended up with coal. But then bacteria developped the ability to digest it. It did not result in an ecological disaster. I expect this to go the same way.
@marcopohl4875
@marcopohl4875 8 місяців тому
definitly takes more research
@eduardobarreto5555
@eduardobarreto5555 8 місяців тому
Worst case scenario we'll have to abandon plastic and go back to stuff like wood, cardboard, metal, glass and ceramics. Economically devastating but not insurmountable.@@theguyfromsaturn
@InsufficientYarsago
@InsufficientYarsago 8 місяців тому
This reminds me alot of the game "RainWorld", ancient civilization went extinct and now plants and animals evolved to their trash and abandoned mechanical environment. Very cool concept.
@kittycatdays8719
@kittycatdays8719 8 місяців тому
wonderful game with an intricate ecosystem
@InsufficientYarsago
@InsufficientYarsago 8 місяців тому
@@kittycatdays8719 indeed
@diegop118
@diegop118 8 місяців тому
Thats exactly what i was thinking
@grasseater123
@grasseater123 6 місяців тому
why do people keep making the games name 1 word
@aaamogusthespiderever2566
@aaamogusthespiderever2566 4 місяці тому
Leviathans are biomechanical monsters that uh just take one chomp and ur dead
@Jumper1155
@Jumper1155 8 місяців тому
I just want to tell you that you are an incredible inspiration. You are among the first people that come to my mind when I think of why I'm going into biology starting this year. You showed me what a deep appreciation of nature is and how theres awesome things to be found even in the outwardly most mundane or boring animals and plants. Your content is amongst the best on the entire platform, I love your narration style and formatting and I can always relax and just enjoy the experience when opening one of your videos. Please never stop.
@tryagaintmrw
@tryagaintmrw 8 місяців тому
Beautifully said
@LzSAUCY
@LzSAUCY 8 місяців тому
Legendary comment , starting marine biology/zoology this year !
@anopoabednego6173
@anopoabednego6173 8 місяців тому
Shut up.
@GillBearToe
@GillBearToe 8 місяців тому
Just remember pay is 40k with a biology degree
@realscience
@realscience 8 місяців тому
This is like the nicest thing anyone has ever said ❤
@luckyotter623
@luckyotter623 8 місяців тому
It's really incredible how life finds ways to adapt, no matter how adverse we may think their environment is.
@whynotfrancis
@whynotfrancis 8 місяців тому
kind of like the creatures living in/around hydrothermal vents- its an environment that seems completely hostile to life, yet there’s an entire ecosystem
@ubutlesslame
@ubutlesslame 8 місяців тому
Petition to collectively call these creatures the Garbage Patch Kids
@js66613
@js66613 8 місяців тому
Here's the thing though: 1) The plastic wasn't there in the first place, we dragged it in there and it is still very much a threat to so many organisms including ourselves. 2) Microplastics are the main problem, them and their ability to accumulate in tissues. And while it's encouraging that /some/ life is adapting, we can't just rely on that. We /still/ need to move on from plastic because of the many animals that won't adapt, and those who have adapted? Well they were already adapted to a similar lifestyle and had a similar lifestyle. These animals were always there, they didn't just suddenly appear with the plastic. Evolution and adaptation takes time -- this didn't just happen the moment plastic appeared and our waste hasn't been around that long, being that we haven't been around that long and the industrial era didn't kick off that long ago. The optimism is nice, but let's not try to minimize the issue of plastic pollution.
@nafsulmuthmainnah4475
@nafsulmuthmainnah4475 3 місяці тому
you got it right the idea of giving up kinda crazy to me
@duudsuufd
@duudsuufd Місяць тому
I think plastic enters the ocean faster than we can clean it up. Cleaning up must continue.
@thecakecraft7724
@thecakecraft7724 7 місяців тому
I just do not understand why we’re treating making garbage and then cleaning a fraction of a fraction of it up as the solution. Yet even bringing up the idea of “what if we stopped companies from making everything plastic and disposable?” invites accusations of being against modern progress and economic efficiency. But are company’s profits really worth all.. THIS? Would it really kill us to use paper bags instead of plastic?
@EatyourWafflesplease
@EatyourWafflesplease Місяць тому
except even then it's not that simple, considering paper is primarily made from trees, and deforestation is (of course) also a massive environmental issue. not that we're completely doomed, or that there's no other way - it'll just take a lot of careful navigation and radical change.
@joeis18
@joeis18 8 місяців тому
I did not believe the blue sea dragon was a real animal until now.
@g0ld3sun
@g0ld3sun 8 місяців тому
If all else fails, hopefully evolution amongst the garbage patch denizens leads to a species that can consume and mitigate the patches one day.
@silent_stalker3687
@silent_stalker3687 4 місяці тому
There are already species that do that However we are yet to find a species to handle eco-friendly paper straws. Yes. Those are more toxic and less degradable than these, and worse than the paper bags we replaced with the plastic bags. Yes. Our ‘green government’ followed the science and replaced paper bags with plastic bags. Then replaced plastic bags with something worse.
@joshtompkins1538
@joshtompkins1538 4 місяці тому
There are actually already already some varieties of marine bacteria that can metabolize types of plastics.
@rinrin4711
@rinrin4711 2 місяці тому
That would be terrible. Imagine world where bacteria eat plastics like nothing.
@Broniath
@Broniath 2 місяці тому
@@rinrin4711Hopefully by then we wont be as reliant on them.
@stevenkunkle3857
@stevenkunkle3857 Місяць тому
​@@Broniathimagine these bacteria getting into a supermarket or hospital. It would be chaos.
@katherinegilks3880
@katherinegilks3880 8 місяців тому
It is interesting that we tend to focus on animals like sea turtles who are eating plastic instead of jellyfish (which is indeed a bad thing), but not the jellyfish themselves. I agree with Dr. Helm’s assessment.
@deplizz7859
@deplizz7859 7 місяців тому
because jellyfish are everywhere and near unaffected by what we have done
@blankityblankblank2321
@blankityblankblank2321 8 місяців тому
Life...uh...finds a way
@GeoffryGifari
@GeoffryGifari 8 місяців тому
do you think these creatures can eventually support a complex ecosystem, with larger animals?
@KrazyKaiser
@KrazyKaiser 8 місяців тому
Given enough time, yes. But it probably takes AT LEAST a few centuries for the food web to develop to that degree, if not millennia.
@GeoffryGifari
@GeoffryGifari 8 місяців тому
@@KrazyKaiser if the garbage patch (and humanity) remain until that time, i imagine we'll face an even greater dilemma
@svenwiberg2563
@svenwiberg2563 8 місяців тому
@@GeoffryGifari Atleast now with this new info I can start flush my plastic in the toilet
@rahn45
@rahn45 8 місяців тому
I think the biodiversity of the garbage patches has been understated due to the focus of "These things were here before, and plastics are simply intruding into their space." The two big things that the plastic does for the life out there is two fold: A surface and shade, this allows for a lot of life to exist out in the middle of the ocean that otherwise becomes impossible. The shade actually attracts fish to area, and when you have fish you things that hunt the fish and you go from there.
@GeoffryGifari
@GeoffryGifari 8 місяців тому
@@rahn45 do you think plastic's resemblance to jellyfish can be beneficial to the jellyfish?
@MrSlanderer
@MrSlanderer 2 місяці тому
Found a blue sea dragon washed up on the beach one day. As small as it is, its colors were absolutely mesmerizing. I took it back into the water, and watched it get taken away by the tide. Only recently did I discover that they sting, though my encounter was without such an experience. Yes, it was still alive when I put it back in the water.
@duudsuufd
@duudsuufd Місяць тому
Maybe they 'sting' if they have recent venom on their skin from their pray.
@jurian0101
@jurian0101 8 місяців тому
Hi, rather than CO2, the gas bladder of Portuguese man o’ war uses *carbon monoxide* instead. Kind of a result of CO2 being much soluble in water, a property some chemistry demos use to make a color-changing fountain.
@blahthebiste7924
@blahthebiste7924 8 місяців тому
That Blue Dragon is 100% a pokemon
@visavo
@visavo 8 місяців тому
this is most definitely, my favorite UKposts Channel!! Thank you Guys
@bazoo513
@bazoo513 8 місяців тому
Prof. Helm's enthusiasm for the topic of her study is practically palpable. Excellent choice of participant, Stephanie! And, of course, congratulations on yet another marvelous video with the moral "it's not that simple"... 😀
@Myron90
@Myron90 8 місяців тому
I can't fathom living in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and being unable to swim
@dudenamedchris3325
@dudenamedchris3325 8 місяців тому
Not too relevant, but I'm perplexed by the word "neuston". Supposedly derives from the Greek word "neustos" which supposedly means swimming, but I couldn't find anything on the word other than the Wikipedia article on neustons, which I don't really trust. I'm Greek, and even though I wasn't a very good student, I expected the word to derive from "nostos", "νόστος", which means "the return to one's home/country". This word is most often used when describing Odysseus' struggle to return to his home island after the Iliad, which he mainly did by boat. So I imagined the similarity of the sailing creatures like man-o-wars and Odysseus's sailing inspired the scientists who discovered these creatures.
@stargateMimhi
@stargateMimhi 8 місяців тому
Orcas are attacking boats because they think it's fun, it's a sport for them. Not because of some abstract concept like revenge.
@AnimalChannel-np1uh
@AnimalChannel-np1uh 7 місяців тому
If it wasn't for all the microplastics and all the sea creatures eating it I would say leave it, but I think it is much better to remove it and let nature recover.
@mmgibson1
@mmgibson1 7 місяців тому
I found this video to be totally fascinating - as a person who did a lot of open ocean voyaging aboard a sailing research vessel back in the mid-1980's I am familiar with the wonders of marine life, but this is something that I have never seen. Even back then we were concerned about the effect of plastics and we kept a log of everything we saw, but it was mostly large things like bags, containers, and floating fishing gear. The trash problem has increased exponentially since then. I also recall seeing Portuguese Man of Wars in the water, and their "sails" are deceptively beautiful and iridescent. I was always glad I was safe up on the deck - those long tentacles can drift in the current and get you even though you think you're far enough away.
@nuclearocean
@nuclearocean 8 місяців тому
"An entire class of organisms lives their entire lives among the trash" Yeah, we know. Redditors and twitter (X) users
@cyphatechie5459
@cyphatechie5459 8 місяців тому
i really love rebbeca helm's charisma as she talks about the organisms
@sohopedeco
@sohopedeco 8 місяців тому
As the song says "life in plastic, it's fantastic".
@--Paws--
@--Paws-- 8 місяців тому
Wow, Rebecca finally featured in a video with her favorite creature.
@xandrewvondiue522
@xandrewvondiue522 8 місяців тому
I love this. Seeing more of the web that makes it inappropriate to simplify things into a yes or no question - such as whether to remove all plastic in the oceans or not - just puts us one step closer to a more holistic and sustainable way of understanding everything
@anactualfingbottleofranch747
@anactualfingbottleofranch747 7 місяців тому
I think it's preposterous to even consider not cleaning up the trash in the ocean, overall it's harmful and needs to be removed, although it's cool that life can adapt to live there
@efhi
@efhi 3 місяці тому
In a neoliberal society it will only be used to halt all efforts
@Kaienhere
@Kaienhere 8 місяців тому
This video was surprisingly motivating
@avishekchakraborty8289
@avishekchakraborty8289 8 місяців тому
I have never looked at biology and related nature studies the way i used to before i started seeing your videos since last year, truly inspiring work!
@xxXKillTheRedsXxx
@xxXKillTheRedsXxx 4 місяці тому
"oh no, I left a bunch of trash on the floor, now a bunch of things are living in it, I don't recognize some of them, let's study before we clean!"
@BodyMusicification
@BodyMusicification 8 місяців тому
Blue Sea Dragons might be my new favorite animal. They're so beautiful! 🥰🥰
@jessicahay9305
@jessicahay9305 Місяць тому
And so dangerous
@GeoffryGifari
@GeoffryGifari 8 місяців тому
once again life, uh, finds a way
@helloworld983
@helloworld983 8 місяців тому
Once again proved that "Life always finds a way to thrive".
@Mondythecat
@Mondythecat 8 місяців тому
I could listen to you reading a Dictionary and I would still be very content. You are a very good journalist, film maker, naturalist and narrator.
@Coltsfantp
@Coltsfantp 8 місяців тому
Yes ! Her voice is so amazing. I can watch these all day!
@HShango
@HShango 8 місяців тому
I agree, her voice is soothing to the 👂🏿
@szymonbaranowski8184
@szymonbaranowski8184 8 місяців тому
you are weird
@shinhikaru
@shinhikaru 5 місяців тому
Hearing that there are living organisms that thrive in places filled with plastics is both fascinating and also terrifying. Life is literally finding a way.
@isaacwilliaiii843
@isaacwilliaiii843 8 місяців тому
This is the second video I watch from your channel, it's another banger as well as the cane toad ones.
@Matty002
@Matty002 7 місяців тому
this is crazy. saying we should leave the plastic is like saying we should leave radioactive matter to spread in an ecosystem that is connected to food we eat. if the animals were surviving with a large decrease in natural floating debris, they will survive if a fraction of the plastic is cleaned up. people arguing about deciding to do something instead of actually doing something is why the planet is heating up and animals keep going extinct
@benjaelee
@benjaelee 8 місяців тому
I never knew there was such nuance to ocean trash
@theholypeanut8193
@theholypeanut8193 8 місяців тому
Meanwhile in the Atlantic Garbage patch lives British people.
@entengummitiger1576
@entengummitiger1576 8 місяців тому
That giant island of trash is a tragedy
@Ag3nt0fCha0s
@Ag3nt0fCha0s 8 місяців тому
As an Englishman these comments made me smile. Then cry.
@steverodgers333
@steverodgers333 8 місяців тому
Love your channel and your stories.
@Frank-ie8dh
@Frank-ie8dh 8 місяців тому
Everyone talks about cleaning up, but no one seems to be changing how they live to me.
@aliceballagh304
@aliceballagh304 8 місяців тому
I've been to the Eden Whale Museum...it was great. This video has opened my eyes about cleaning up the great Pacific garbage patch. Can you do a video about the bacteria that eat plastic? Ta!
@lilchipps999
@lilchipps999 8 місяців тому
I want you to know that I love your channel so so much. All the videos are so professional and I can tell how much you love what you are talking about. Keep talking about our beautiful sea.
@dr.heidiwichmann4457
@dr.heidiwichmann4457 8 місяців тому
I have to compliment you for your amazing work :)
@Chickencluts1234
@Chickencluts1234 5 місяців тому
I really loved the way you guys cleaned up the ocean!!!
@DiveHard
@DiveHard 8 місяців тому
This is just so interesting and well done. Thank you 🙏🏽 🤙🏽
@marcosmackie
@marcosmackie 4 місяці тому
I'm far from convinced that this channel should be called 'real science'
@dhruvgoel411
@dhruvgoel411 8 місяців тому
The first priority should be to stop further plastic from entering oceans and the second should be to clean up as much harmful waste as possible. Life is adaptable but that doesn't mean we 'give up ownership' of the trash we create. A person can adapt to living on trash as well, that doesn't mean he should.
@EFJ56
@EFJ56 4 місяці тому
I saw one of those Velella velella strandings once on a beach in Melbourne! It's stuck with me ever since. That surreal scene under a perfect starry sky, the still air, the calm ocean stretching into darkness... and that thick mass of blue jellies, all rotting together around crisp packets and beer cans on the sand. It felt like the whole world had stopped to say, "Look at this-- look at all this death and decay. This is what you're doing to the world, this is what you can expect."
@eventhorizon7267
@eventhorizon7267 7 місяців тому
I'm a undergraduate biosystems engineering student and one of my latest research ideas were plastic and biodegradable plastics , but now I wonder 🤔🤔🤔 this is a really interesting thing to concider
@gerritvalkering1068
@gerritvalkering1068 8 місяців тому
This is probably going to sound incredibly human-centric. We should consider first and foremost what would be best for us. Which means being very careful of changing the ecosystems we're part of. We know that the oceans as they had been up to now are incredibly beneficial, or at least relatively beneficial, for us. We don't know if oceans + our trash will be as beneficial to us. Logically, we should be wary of changing the status quo in the ecosystem when we can't predict the results
@TheOmegaXicor
@TheOmegaXicor 4 місяці тому
That is traditional stupidity, we know we have survived thousands of years without farming, logically we should not plant grains and stay a hunter gatherer species. We know that slavery was incredibly beneficial, or at least relatively beneficial, for us, we don't know if our society-slavery will be as beneficial to us, logically we should maintain slavery. I'm not suggesting plastic in the ocean is good, I'm all for cleaning up and aiming for our impact on the planet to be zero, but just that is a bad argument for setting policies.
@mishiwishu7823
@mishiwishu7823 3 місяці тому
@@TheOmegaXicorSlavery is the antithesis of “best for humanity”??? Unless you exclude the slaves from your definition of humanity, which is… yikes. And I don’t even know where you were going with your first point.
@bobbystrong6849
@bobbystrong6849 7 місяців тому
Something I noticed when watching videos on the Ocean Interceptors, the river-cleaning robots. Along with all the trash they remove, they also remove a large amount of natural organic matter that would create resources for many animals in the open ocean.
@phoenix__rose394
@phoenix__rose394 8 місяців тому
"metric F ton" I love it
@tinytortoise1296
@tinytortoise1296 8 місяців тому
The thing is, all these species that live in the plastic didn't live in the plastic before because there was not plastic, so removing it seems fine to me
@franciscomoraes8464
@franciscomoraes8464 2 місяці тому
13:50
@mojofier1909
@mojofier1909 8 місяців тому
"Pacific Garbage Patch", that's the first I've ever heard of that... (also sounds funny to me). Ty for upload!
@brady1045
@brady1045 8 місяців тому
It’s a colloquial term for New Zealand
@youtubebannedme
@youtubebannedme 8 місяців тому
​@@brady1045nah, you foul for that, you either an aussie or a new zealander, because no way in hell any non australian think about NZ randomly😂
@brady1045
@brady1045 8 місяців тому
@@youtubebannedme lol I’m american
@youtubebannedme
@youtubebannedme 8 місяців тому
@@brady1045 nuh uh, have a g'day tho m8
@mojofier1909
@mojofier1909 8 місяців тому
@@brady1045 Nooooo! I moved to and lived in NZ for 4~ years before coming to AUS back in 2001. I will always have a soft spot for my Auckland homies :>
@avishekchakraborty8289
@avishekchakraborty8289 8 місяців тому
from the title and thumbnail i felt this might my new favourite real science video
@patriciastevens9185
@patriciastevens9185 8 місяців тому
You've Earned My Respect
@nk361
@nk361 8 місяців тому
Collect the plastic and replace it with wood. Toss wood out into the ocean as a preservation effort. I can only imagine the massive collection of wood and logs back when most land was covered with trees instead of concrete buildings.
@villager736
@villager736 8 місяців тому
Now this is great speculative biology material right here
@Nekoyashiki-san
@Nekoyashiki-san Місяць тому
Thanks for the video.
@CountCocofang
@CountCocofang 8 місяців тому
This just shows how its ludicrous for humans to intentionally intervene with the environment. We have absolutely no concept about how incredibly complex it all is and how seemingly unrelated things can be tightly entwined. It's an ever present butterfly effect that we cannot hope to comprehend. As such the priority should always be to preemptively prevent the impact of human activity instead of trying to mitigate things after the fact. Because at that point we truly don't know anymore what we are even doing. But that's just the repeating cycle of humanities history. It's always "act first, understand later, scramble to fix, break even more through fixing". It's a pattern as old as humans.
@accelerateforsuccess987
@accelerateforsuccess987 8 місяців тому
this is one of the topics rarely explored anywhere else, and a clear example why this channel is a true gem on this platform. Your work and production is of top quality, and your knowlege is formidable
@tuberroot1112
@tuberroot1112 8 місяців тому
I really appreciate the objective commentary. At least I feel like we are getting an objective assessment of the issue and the counter arguments to the instinctive desire to just "clean up our mess" instead of some moralistic ecological preaching service. Very good video. I think there is some confusing with the basin wide gyres which are caused by ("ficticious") corelolis forces and tidal nodes "amphidromic points". There are areas of the large oceans where there are ZERO or negligible tides. There is one between Hawaii and California and another in the N. Atl. area you mentioned. I had read that these were the areas where garbage tended to accumulate. Also thanks for busting the idea that these are thick carpets of plastic waste, which is the erroneous popular percpetion. Nice work.
@brigidtheirish
@brigidtheirish 8 місяців тому
I appreciate that, too. Though I do have to wonder why no one seems to have suggested that the reason only 1% of the estimated plastic has been found is because the estimate might be *wrong.*
@AdaptorLive
@AdaptorLive 8 місяців тому
Such an interesting topic and such a comprehensive take on it. You outdid yourself with this one.
@renfarrar8548
@renfarrar8548 8 місяців тому
*wringing hands "What if we make the ocean TOO clean? Won't somebody think of the nudibranch??!?!?!"
@PrinceD-fo4pk
@PrinceD-fo4pk 5 місяців тому
Wow it is so informative thanks!
@nathanieladams8377
@nathanieladams8377 8 місяців тому
Love this channel - so informationally dense and the interviews with professionals in the field really improve credibility. Although I will say the bit about the orcas “being tired of our shit” is pretty disingenuous; they’re social creatures and have never shown real aggression towards humans
@storieswithdon786
@storieswithdon786 8 місяців тому
Except for the recent attacks on our boats. They are tired of our shit.
@debbiehenri345
@debbiehenri345 8 місяців тому
I think they have been attacking boats in a particular area off the coast of Spain. As far as I remember, it was only one particular pod; I haven't come across any information to suggest the habit of 'attacking humans' is spreading from one pod to another. I would imagine these attacks come as a result from that particular pod being attacked by humans at some point in the past, or the Orcas within it have observed humans taking an unreasonable amount of prey from the sea (but I favour the first point as being the most likely). Orcas are not just social creatures, as you mentioned, they are (as I'm sure you would agree) incredibly intelligent, and if they were a land animal - would be giving us apes a run for our money! I don't think they would attack humans for no good reason. At some point, one of their own has been hurt, or killed, or a boatload of Spanish fishermen have tried to drive the pod away from their favourite fishing grounds. (There are a few videos on this platform showing fishermen being exceptionally and unnecessarily cruel to sea creatures. There is a deeply unpleasant one of Asians brutally attacking Giant Mantas). ...To demonstrate the possibility of sea animals holding 'grudges:' Some time ago, I read an old book written by an American author (forget his name now), who undertook a motorbike journey through a mostly uninhabited region of Baja California to see the Grey Whales. At that time, Grey Whales were known to be aggressive, and had frequently attacked boats of all types. They had even killed a number of humans (and did indeed kill the author's guide at a later date). The author himself suggested that this behaviour was in response to whaling activities, which had ceased not long before. Nowadays, Grey Whales are much calmer in the presence of human vessels and have been known to appeal for their help if a member of their school is caught in nets, etc. So they have obviously come to understand that we no longer hunt them and are more likely to help instead.
@rhabdob3895
@rhabdob3895 8 місяців тому
Are you serious? This boat smashing aggression counts.
@rhabdob3895
@rhabdob3895 8 місяців тому
@@debbiehenri345 intelligence is correlated to violence. Animals aren’t peaceful and wise. They’re hungry and enjoy beating up weaker things. Like us.
@JariDawnchild
@JariDawnchild 8 місяців тому
There have been studies that show Orcas follow trends and fads of their own make. I came across something a while back discussing how one member of a pod was swimming with a fish on its head and over the next several months, most of the rest of the pod was doing it before they lost interest. There's a possibility that going after boats may be another fad, but there seems to be no real consensus on how certain experts are on that.
@Merennulli
@Merennulli 8 місяців тому
Always glad to see approaches that realize if something is important, it's important enough to think before acting. We have seen far too many disasters created by people who claim to care about the environment but refuse to do the hard work of researching first. And kneejerk anti-plastic movements that don't consider what the damage their removal demands will cause are currently among the worst that I know of. (Roughly on par with the anti-nuclear ignorance squad in Germany that got new coal plants brought online directly due to their efforts.)
@anactualfingbottleofranch747
@anactualfingbottleofranch747 7 місяців тому
That's incredibly ignorant of you to compare anti-nuclear people to anti-plastic people. Removing plastic is overall a positive thing, especially ghost gear and preventing microplastics from being released. The fact that you called them knee-jerk is astounding
@tesladrew2608
@tesladrew2608 7 місяців тому
​@@anactualfingbottleofranch747if the shoe fits
@charlesemans419
@charlesemans419 8 місяців тому
BOOM! My mind expanded. Thank you for that. Now I will have something interesting to discuss.
@Infinitum-0
@Infinitum-0 8 місяців тому
Every time I watch this exquisite channel I am staggered by the sheer bizarrity of natural life; especially in the oceans. It seems nature is hellbent on filling every niche it can to the max with endless variety. Though the problems presented here forgo one simple conclusion: that the root of the issue is not the cleaning or not of plastics, but the industries which produce them in the first place. Yet; good luck changing that...
@MrJayb76
@MrJayb76 8 місяців тому
looking forward to my plastic bottle being another's sealife mansion.
@gongboom
@gongboom 5 місяців тому
I live on the island of Curaçao and go swimming all the time. Last monday the sea currents were coming from the wrong direction. As I entered the sea I noticed many small yellyfish of the most beautiful blue color in the water. They have a perfectly circular almost metallic silver or gold colored body and a fringe of short tentacles of a striking blue color. They are around 2 to 3 cm big. Turns out these are Blue Button yellyfish. I had never seen an animal as bizarre and pretty. At first I thought these were man-made objects or perhaps the eggs of some yellyfish. I scooped one up in my hands and put it on the beach. Its tentacles would easily detach from the body. Where the sea would normally be clean, there was a lot of garbage floating on the surface. Bits of plastic, algae, plants, wood, seeds and more. It was funny to see how a type of barnacle established a perfecly balanced colony along the edges of a plastic insole of a discarded shoe. I found a strange floating object. I couldn't make out whether it was a piece of wood or plastic. It turned out to be a piece of ambergris. Never had I imagined I would find such a thing. Ambergris comes from the digestive system of sperm whales. It is used in luxury perfumes and is very valuable. I have made a one minute video about the blue button yellyfish and ambergris I found. You can find it on my channel.
@Elemarth
@Elemarth 8 місяців тому
This is actually really good. I didn't know about almost an yof this.
@Jester123ish
@Jester123ish 8 місяців тому
Makes sense, a bunch of creatures that can't swim end up in the same place as the rubbish, which also must necessarily go where the wind and currents take it.
@GeoffryGifari
@GeoffryGifari 8 місяців тому
its mentioned that neustons rely on their flotation organs to stay in the right habitat. Does plastic play a similar role, instead of growing their own floaters, they just hitch on the plastic?
@kimpeater1
@kimpeater1 8 місяців тому
When proper trees first came on the scene during the Carboniferous Period, trees would die and just lay there for millions of years before life evolved to break it down. Something similar will probably occur with plastic. It is still carbon after all, and life can use carbon for many things.
@suruxstrawde8322
@suruxstrawde8322 8 місяців тому
It is in fact already happening, animals and bacteria are being found that digest simpler plastic types. Difference is that there’s hundreds more types of plastics than there are tree cellulose arrangements. But evolution will move as fast as extinctions do, so the more destruction humanity causes without fully wiping out ecosystems, the faster we’ll see equal responses from nature.
@eljanrimsa5843
@eljanrimsa5843 8 місяців тому
@@suruxstrawde8322 That's wishful thinking. Usually the extinction happens first, then in the next millions of years evolution pops up with new ideas that take advantage of the new resources
@Nova_Jan
@Nova_Jan 8 місяців тому
@@suruxstrawde8322 it at minimum takes eons for these thing to happen, you all forget how long these things will take. The problem is humanity lasting long enough in our current iteration. A massive die off of our species is when things would be able to stabilize.
@uningenieromas
@uningenieromas 8 місяців тому
I agree with you. The same thing happened with oxygen, at first a waste material. Life finds a way.
@pandap4ntz
@pandap4ntz 3 дні тому
Absolutely fascinating video, thank you so much opening my eyes to this info that is not being talked about. I watch a lot of environmental videos, and I'm a marine life nut, and this is my first time hearing about all the critters living amongst the plastic. What a case of "you're not looking closely enough."
@jensenthegreen6780
@jensenthegreen6780 8 місяців тому
They already have an ecosystem outside of the garbage patch, Just get rid of the trash entirely for the betterment of the rest.
@nathanhall6151
@nathanhall6151 2 місяці тому
Not sure you can say we shouldn’t clean the millions of tonnes out of the ocean because a sea slug and some jellyfish happen to live amongst it
@ontoya1
@ontoya1 8 місяців тому
I feel like if you give this guy an octopus brain and/or you wait a couple of million years then we might actually have a sea creature that could achieve opposability and intelligence enough to use that opposability to create technology
@Iknowtoomuchable
@Iknowtoomuchable 8 місяців тому
*Blue Sea Dragon to a Cnidocyte:* "Hey, b*tch! Wanna make some REAL money?"
@rambi1072
@rambi1072 4 дні тому
I like how enthusiastic dr Rebecca Helm was about the blue sea dragon lol
@rhabdob3895
@rhabdob3895 8 місяців тому
This reminded me 😂of the Great Lakes zebra mussel explosion in the… uhhhhmmmm… 80s? They covered every surface under the water line. They were little black razor blades. What happened was they filtered the green water of lake st. Clair into crystalline Lake Superior type water. The sun loving weeds grew along the surface from the shore out to 10ft of water. I forgot how they got rid of them.
@rahn45
@rahn45 8 місяців тому
It's a question few people even bother to ask themselves: "Is there an upside?" The answer was obviously a yes, though the rule of cute will override most people's critical analysis of the situation. If something negatively impacts a small group of something that's perceived as cute, it will not matter if it positively impacts the vast majority. Something that's not really covered in this video is how the garbage patch creates oasises in the middle of the desert of the ocean. While having a surface for eggs of sea slugs is a bonus for the sea slugs specifically, that surface is valuable to a wide variety of life. It also provides shelter from the sun as well, allowing other creatures that are incapable of diving deep to avoid solar radiation to exist on the water's surface layer. Keep in mind, we only know that there's life on these garbage patches because those people who were cleaning it up collected so much of it that they couldn't ignore it, and even then it's downplayed as to how much life they've killed in their effort to clean up the trash for obvious reasons: It's bad optics. One man's garbage is another man's treasure, and in the case of our plastics in the ocean, more and more it's looking like our garbage is the foundation for an entire ecosystem that increases the biomass and biodiversity in the middle of the ocean.
@Unkn0wn1133
@Unkn0wn1133 8 місяців тому
there is huge patches floating, you could see it on google maps but theyre blurred now
@tommyvictorbuch6960
@tommyvictorbuch6960 8 місяців тому
Leaving the trash, and just let the problem grow, isn't an option. It has to be removed.
@RemiliaVampire
@RemiliaVampire 8 місяців тому
You inspired me to go back to school! I'll be in year two in september! Keep it up!!
@dominoot2652
@dominoot2652 7 місяців тому
If I so humbly may ask, if when you list your sources in the description, if you could label them with a title, topic, or mayyybe a time stamp. I do really like that in the video, the source is always shown in the corner. I absolutely love that these videos peak my curiosity and send me down new rabbit holes of information. Appreciate you all :)))
@2MaxVoltage
@2MaxVoltage 8 місяців тому
its beautiful
@paigemalloy4276
@paigemalloy4276 8 місяців тому
Marine organisms are endlessly fascinating ❤ This video is very bittersweet. . .
@elonmadetwitterracist
@elonmadetwitterracist 8 місяців тому
another reminder of: WHAT HAVE WE DONE? 😢 thank u so much for teaching the world with another masterpiece ❤
@wrngholeonichan
@wrngholeonichan 8 місяців тому
For all y’all saying ban plastics just know that most trash killing animals in the sea is from commercial fishing. Straws for instance makes up less than 1% of ocean trash.
@szymonbaranowski8184
@szymonbaranowski8184 8 місяців тому
gay polar bears beg to differ
@eran3161
@eran3161 8 місяців тому
Which doesn't change anything about it being a good thing to reduce single use plastics...
@wrngholeonichan
@wrngholeonichan 8 місяців тому
@@eran3161 Europe and North America make up such a small percentage of ocean trash. Unless you can get china and India to stop polluting too it’ll only be a token gesture to make suburban moms and low T men feel better about themselves.
@nj1255
@nj1255 8 місяців тому
I believe the most important thing for us is to prevent new plastic entering the oceans. How to do that is the question.
@johnsteiner3417
@johnsteiner3417 8 місяців тому
Weird to see my short story about plastic contributing to some forms of life baring out in real time.
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