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An ocean mystery - how the blackest fish in the deep sea are so extremely black - has been solved in a study that began with a very bad photograph.

"I couldn't get a good shot - just fish silhouettes," said Dr Karen Osborn from the Smithsonian Institution.

Her detailed study of the animal's "ultra-black" skin revealed that it traps light.

While it makes the animals difficult to photograph, marine scientists say it provides the ultimate camouflage.

There is, Dr Osborn explained, nowhere to hide from predators in the deep ocean, so this "ultra-blackness" renders creatures almost invisible.
The discovery, described in the journal Current Biology, could provide the basis for new ultra-black materials, such as coatings for the interior of telescopes or cameras.

Several ultra-black species, according to the research, appear independently to have evolved the exact same trick.

"The particles of pigment in their skin are just the right size and shape to side-scatter any light they don't absorb," Dr Osborn, from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, explained.

These pigment particles are arranged in a densely-packed, thin layer. "So instead of bouncing the light back out, they scatter it back into the layer - it's a light trap."

It was Dr Osborn's frustrated efforts to take good photographs of the deep-sea species she was studying that inspired her and her colleagues to take a much closer - microscopic-scale - look.

"Every picture I took was really bad - it was so frustrating," she told BBC News. "[Then] I noticed they had really strange skin - they're so black, they suck up all the light."

This light-trapping skin, the researchers say, is the ultimate in deep-sea camouflage - where there is very little light, but where other species - including predators - make their own bioluminescent light.

"You don't know where that light is going to come from," Dr Osborn explained. "So living in the deep sea is like playing hide and seek on a football field - your best shot is to turn green and lay down as flat as you can."

"Being so very black really helps these creatures to survive."

Her efforts to capture beautifully clear images of these ultra-black species - all of which live at ocean depths of more than 200m - eventually paid off.

"It took a lot of special lighting," she admitted. "And a lot of Photoshop."

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53422345

What we don't know that we don't know is more than what we know that we don't know.
Humanity have not fully explored the earth and discovered all that there is to discover before zooming off to space.

This one na ayamatanga fish

Am i the only man that hates bbnaija. I feel its a waste of time.

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.....

Great discovery.
Science keeps making new discoveries.

I have noticed something on science related threads.
There are usually these set of unintelligent religious folks who have refused to grasp knowledge and tend to make silly, childish remarks. Why? Simply because the information contradicts their religious beliefs. So they refuse facts based on research and rely on books written by men who never knew how the world worked.
If this research had mentioned "50 million years", here are the kind of ignorant comments one would expect.
"How old is the world again"?
"How did they know this"?
"were they there? so how did they arrive at the age"?
"Science and lies".
"What is the benefit of this research"?
"These liars are always trying to discredit the bible".


You see, these comments come from people who are unintelligent, and have refused to do little research, simply because they don't want to feel the earth dates back to billions of years, which will prove that their beliefs are false.
They're always quick to discredit scientific discoveries like this because it doesn't suit their beliefs.
They'd rather lie to themselves than admit the truth.
If you're ignorant about how scientists come up with the age of an object, or how they arrive at certain conclusions, just a simple Google search would do. Information is power. Widen your horizon.

Just so you know: If you don't believe research which is based on evidence and facts, but believe that a virgin gave birth to a boy who walked on water and turned it into wine, only to die and resurrect three days later to ascend into the sky, then you're a compound fool .

Mtshhhw

So black they absorb light.

Na wa ooooo

Science always logical

My religion is science jare

We are even waiting for it in covid 19

I love anything science

We hardly devote our time to create new knowledge in Nigeria here, unless it brings money...

I discovered that the science of old is far more advanced than now, infact, the technology of old is also far more better than now. They have hidden everything from the masses in other to properly enslave the masses. They are giving us crappy devices full of EMR. Most of what they produce aids the shortening of man's life span.

You need to search science and technology of old, You will be surprised and realize Everything na scam, na only The Most High no be scam.

This space is for sell for 0.0001 BTC

H

Africans will call it a fish from the pit of hell since it hates light

Best Fish to Eat

Orisirisi

And some people will still eat this.

Fish that you cannot use for point and kill, is that one fish?

Ok o

My 9ja pals no go gree eat dx one

Scary

But baba create sha,abeg make una twala for am.

when would Nigerian scientist start these kind of reasearch

So wats the point of your testimony? Make we chop the fish or not

Black African magic

.

Is that fish or some weird snake?

My God.
We've really not seen up to 10% of underwater creatures.

Everyday, it's a new specie from underwater. The Earth is truly blessed.

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Una nor get problem. I dey think of how tomorrow go sure me, na blackest fish una dey tell us. If I even see am, I go eat am.

Wonders shall never end.

Great Research... While our professors and PhD lectures in Nigeria universities keep reciting outdated lecture notes and selling handouts and lecturing in two or more higher institutions with same outdated techniques instead of proper research to uplift Nigeria... Some people need to face firing squad in this country for progress to come