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by Matt Bradwell Townsville, Australia (UPI) Aug 18, 2014
It only takes a light brush for one to be stung by a jellyfish, but a new viral video recorded for the first time the dozens of microscopic needles that shoot from jellyfish into their victims. Although most people assume a jellyfish sting is an allergic reaction to an irritant on the surface of the creature's tentacles, it is actually caused by microscopic cells that work like a syringe, puncturing the surface of the skin and almost instantaneously injecting venom before retracting. Destin Sandlin, founder and host of YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay, took his cameras to James Cook University in Australia, where Dr. James Seymour used a microscope and high-speed lens to record the first ever video of the jellyfish stingers in action. "We've never seen that before," Seymour exclaims upon observing the delay between when the needles were deployed and the venom was injected. "We've seen venom come out the end of these things, [but] we've never seen that delay [between deployment and injection] -- but we've never looked for it ... This is the sort of stuff I get up in the morning for ... It's the joy of actually coming in and going 'I just saw something that nobody else in the world has ever seen before.'"
Manatee dies in Paris zoo after drowning in pool Barry, who was three years old and one of only two of the sea mammals in the zoo in Vincennes, died on August 11 after getting stuck "in an underwater gallery between two parts of the pool that are usually closed by a door," said Alexis Lecu, the scientific director of the park. The mammals, which are listed as a vulnerable species by the World Conservation Union, need to resurface for air roughly every ten minutes. "There are certain parts of the pool where the animal can rest out of sight of the public," Lecu told AFP. "We are trying to do our best with the information we have," he said, adding that the owners have launched an investigation into the accident. "We hope that this will serve as a lesson to other zoos." Barry was born in a zoo in Odense in Denmark, and was one of a number of animals in a European breeding plan for the species and only returned to the zoo in July. The park, which is situated in the east of the French capital in the leafy suburb of Vincennes, reopened in April after three years of work. In the wild, manatees are found in shallow, slow-moving rivers and coastal areas, but are slow, near-surface swimmers, and many are killed and injured when hit by motorboats.
Related Links Darwin Today At TerraDaily.com
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