Scientists have found a warm-blooded fish and we're probably all dead

They’re evolving.

Though it’s been a while, I have written extensively on this site about the dangers of the ocean. It’s too big, it’s too unexplored, and there are far too many creatures in it we don’t understand.

And now what little we did understand about fish is being flipped on its head. One of the fundamental truths we knew about those slippery, dead-eyed, gill-havers–that they’re cold-blooded–turns out might not be the case at all.

Scientists have found a warm-blooded fish, called the opah, and we can all start the clock to our extinction.

From USA TODAY:

In a discovery that defies conventional biology, a big fish that lives deep in the Pacific Ocean has been found to be warm blooded, like humans, other mammals and birds.

Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) determined that unlike other fish, opah generate heat as they swim and distribute the warmth throughout their entire disc-shaped bodies by special blood vessels. Special “counter-current heat exchangers” in their gills minimize heat loss, allowing the deepwater predators to keep their bodies several degrees above the water temperature 250 feet down.

Don’t be confused by the opah’s name, which is trickily close to something you’d scream at a Greek wedding. And don’t be confused by its appearance, which looks like a big, sweet tuna.

This is a sign. This is a message from the deep. Fish are changing. They’re getting smarter. It won’t be long before the warm blood of this fish starts burning hot, hot with a desire to eat us one by one.

Stay out of the water. You’ve been warned.

NOAA Fisheries, Southwest Fisheries Science Center

Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/mit-engineers-have-high-hopes-for-cheetah-robot/article_5082c57f-a4a3-5a78-a61a-307d68834d88.html

They’re evolving.
Though it’s been a while, I have written extensively on this site about the dangers of the ocean. It’s too big, it’s too unexplored, and there are far too many creatures in it we don’t understand.
And now what little we did understand about fish is being flipped on its head....

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