[OT] Chilean Beach Blob identified

[Eternalknight]

A follow up to a thread last week.

SANTIAGO, Chile, (Reuters) -- Chilean scientists said on Friday their study of a huge blob of flesh found on a Pacific beach about three weeks ago concluded it was the carcass of a sperm whale, ending speculation of a giant octopus.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/07/11/chile.creature.reut/index.html

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

Shenanigans!

It's a conspiracy I tell you!

TS

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Bah. Science is always trying to explain away all the fun stuff. You'd think they couldn't abide having unexplainable stuff about or something.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I think the purpose of science is to not abide unexplainable stuff. I think the explanation is fascinating. I've found that the more one knows, the more one discovers what one doesn't know, and thereby the world seems even more huge and mysterious. Explanations always seem to open up even bigger vistas. I never knew how whales decompose; I always just assumed that whatever wasn't eaten simply sank after a while, to decompose on the ocean floor.

 

[Pielorinho]

I agree with the Colonel. This paragraph from the article:

When a sperm whale dies at sea, it rots until it becomes a "skeleton suspended in a semi-liquid mass within a bag of skin and blubber," the scientists said. Eventually, the skin tears and the bones sink while the skin and blubber float.

is amazingly nasty and cool.

Plus, I found out from the article why they're called sperm whales:

"This washes up and has the appearance of an octopus because the spermaceti organ keeps its bulky shape," they added.

The spermaceti is a large bulbous organ that forms a sort of forehead and contains a milky wax which early whalers likened to sperm fluid.

Thanks for the update, EternalKnight!
Daniel

 

[PowerWordDumb]

That really was a great read. Deeply disturbing and disgusting while also incredibly informative and interesting. Yay for science!

Slightly more on-topic for this board, I can't be the only one who's suddenly gotten inspiration for some wonderfully different undead sea-life from this, can I? Picturing wraithlike slimy whale-skirts floating through the ocean is much cooler than the traditional whale skeleton image which jumps to mind.

 

[Aeolius]

I can't be the only one who's suddenly gotten inspiration for some wonderfully different undead sea-life from this, can I?

nope! I replied to this thread earlier.
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55432&pagenumber=2

 

[Ferret]

Nope, Just the idea of an alien crash and that is what is left of the aliens.

I think like that.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

But how do they know it wasn't the carcass of a giant squid that had eaten a sperm whale?

I'd like more extensive DNA sampling, please...


Wulf

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I think the purpose of science is to not abide unexplainable stuff. I think the explanation is fascinating.

Oh, it's a good explanation, and honestly a likely one. But this is going back to what turned me off from cryptozoology in the first place... this annoying habit of any and most all unexplainable things to turn out to be something mundane and, honestly, not interesting at all. How fun is it when every beached plesiosaur turns out to be a decomposed basking shark, when every UFO turns out to be the refraction of headlights from a nearby highway?

This is one of those things where you wish you could say it's unexplainable; fact is, it's not. There's not many mysteries left on our little Earth, and those that are will never be solved (like Jack The Ripper). Most disheartening.