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“Earth is a misnomer”

February 8, 2011 by Steve Mentz 1 Comment

Another plane book from my travels in January, this one is MIT anthropologist Stefan Helmriech’s travels and adventures with marine macrobial biologists in and under the oceans.  Some great stuff about what’s happening in Woods Hole and Monterey.

The takeaway is that the macrobial life in the ocean is much vaster and more complex that we’ve hitherto imagined.  A mililiter of sea water “in a genetic sense, has more complexity than the human genome” (53).

It’s also a story about the shifting of human interest in marine life away from anthropomorphic mammals, from whales to dolphins and now to microbes (5-6).

Some comments also remind me that I need to re-read Lem’s novel Solaris.

Filed Under: Blue Humanities, Books

Comments

  1. Brendan says

    February 11, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    Didn’t scientists discover several new realms or species of microbes in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill, a nation at mid-depth whose population exploded right after the spill due to conditions in the water chemistry and then turned ravenously upon the oil.

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About Steve

Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
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TheatreforaNewATheatre for a New Audience@TheatreforaNewA·
22 Jan

Join us next week for An Exploration of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE with actor John Douglas Thompson in the role of Shylock and director Arin Arbus, joined by a diverse cast, as they explore one of Shakespeare's most controversial plays and its flawed central character.

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22 Jan

Very excited to join this panel this afternoon!

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