From NASA:

In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists for the first time found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath a massive Antarctic ice sheet.

Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.

That’s why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera’s cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

“We were operating on the presumption that nothing’s there,” said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler, who will be presenting the initial findings and a video at an American Geophysical Union meeting Wednesday. “It was a shrimp you’d enjoy having on your plate.”

Here you can see the giant Space Jelly descending into the polar Aurora in an attempt to camouflage itself. As they say, this won’t hurt a bit.

Here is how the donation program works:

$1 for every person who registers with Jely and invites their friends.

$.10 for every person who follows @jelyinc on Twitter.

$.01 for every tweet that uses Jely to shorten their URLs.

All of this for a maximum donation service value of $40,000. Anybody can help, you do not need to be a volunteer for Books For Soldiers for this program.

We are gearing up for the travel season and are doing a stress test on Jely on Dec. 14th.

Please use Jely all you want and especially for airport tweets – just add your airport code to the end of our URL (example: http://je.ly/SFO, http://je.ly/CLT, http://je.ly/OAK)

Please test Jely with your local airport! We need to make sure we have all of that covered.

Thanks!

@stormbear
@jelyinc

We launched a new project today – Jely (http://je.ly). For months you have had to put up with pictures of Jellyfish and the frequent story of jellies taking over the planet. We were cranking on our code and waned to put something on our blog.

This release of Jely creates Tweetable URLs for travel and the locations of things. For example, you can type in “pizza” and your ZIP code, and you will get a tweetable link for Pizza in your neighborhood.

You can do the same for longitude, latitude, even your closest airport (http://je.ly/sfo). Want the weather at your house? Just type in your ZIP code and tweet away!

This is a public alpha release so use our contact form for any problems you run into.

OK… I am going to damn bed.

@stormbear

From The Telegraph:

The Turritopsis Nutricula is able to revert back to a juvenile form once it mates after becoming sexually mature.

Marine biologists say the jellyfish numbers are rocketing because they need not die.

Dr Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute said: “We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion.”

The jellyfish are originally from the Caribbean but have spread all over the world.

Turritopsis Nutricula is technically known as a hydrozoan and is the only known animal that is capable of reverting completely to its younger self.

The trawler, the Diasan Shinsho-maru, capsized off Chiba`as its three-man crew was trying to haul in a net containing dozens of huge Nomura’s jellyfish.

Each of the jellyfish can weigh up to 200 kg and waters around Japan have been inundated with the creatures this year. Experts believe weather and water conditions in the breeding grounds, off the coast of China, have been ideal for the jellyfish in recent months.

The crew of the fishing boat was thrown into the sea when the vessel capsized, but the three men were rescued by another trawler, according to the Mainichi newspaper. The local Coast Guard office reported that the weather was clear and the sea was calm at the time of the accident. (more)

The jellies are fighting for the whales now!

The invasion begins!

The Jellyfish Nebula on Wikipedia

Jellyfish from the waters off of the South Korean town of Tongyeong are being found in the anchovy nets of the local fisherman. In a Joong Ang Daily article, the fisherman claim the jellies emit a toxin that kills small fish. But we know the real story here.

The jellyfish are giving their lives to protect the noble anchovies.

“The ocean water is full of jellyfish,” complained Huh O-ryong, 48, a fisherman residing in Pohang, North Gyeongsang. “Once you pull up a net, you find 20 tons of jellyfish stuck in there. It takes about two hours to remove them all.”

::cackle::