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A visitor to a California reservoir took a closer look at what he thought was pollen floating in the water and discovered it was actually a school of jellyfish native to China. Casey Neet captured video when he spotted the jellyfish in waters near the Stumpy Meadows Reservoir in Northern California's Eldorado National Forest. Experts identified the tiny creatures as peach blossom jellyfish, a species native to China's Yangtze River valley. The jellyfish, which have the ability to reproduce asexually, have been spotted in other bodies of water around the world, but their impact on local ecosystems has not yet...

Pull my finger.

Every summer an influx of jellyfish is seen off the Israeli coast. This year the jellyfish are bigger than normal. As Israel's yearly jellyfish influx approaches its apex, University of Haifa's Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences has been studying the ecology and life cycle of jellyfish along Israel's coast. And as a huge swarm of jellyfish appeared off Haifa's coast, the University's researchers took the opportunity to get up close and personal with Israel's all-too-familiar summer marine animals — and this year they're larger than ever. "Overall, this is the summer bloom of jellyfish that we anticipate, but...

Erik Prince, the founder of private security company Blackwater, has found himself embroiled in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. During the campaign, Prince reportedly met at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., operative George Nader, and social media specialist Joel Zamel to discuss a potential pro-Trump social media influence operation. He also met with Russian sovereign wealth fund manager Kirill Dmitriev during the transition period—a meeting reportedly planned to set up a backchannel between the Trump administration and Russia. Those revelations raise questions about his relationship to the Trump administration—questions...

Secret Blackwater tape might not be all it's hyped up to be about Erik Prince. A few media outlets claim they have a secret audio recording that contains 3,500 words made by Prince. It is a rare item because the Blackwater owner has always tried to ban journalists from his public speeches.Blackwater has dealt with a lot of controversy during the past five years. Erik Prince is the reclusive owner of the special operations company. He rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts to ban audio recording and videotaping. One media outlet claims they have obtained an...

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday the Trump administration is not preparing to set up a private global spy network to circumvent U.S. intelligence agencies. "I haven't asked [President Trump], but it's not something that's currently in the works," Sanders said at the daily White House press briefing. The denial followed a report in The Intercept that the administration was considering reliance on private spies to avoid "deep state" biases against Trump and to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo supplemental information. The idea reportedly is being considered at the urging of Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Oliver North,...

A retired CIA officer reportedly working with Blackwater founder Erik Prince to pitch the White House on a global, private spy network which as we reported yesterday would allow the White House to circumvent and counter "deep state enemies" within U.S. intelligence agencies, is said to have made the stunning claim that National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster worked with the NSA to perform surveillance on Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, Steve Bannon and others, according to a report in The Intercept. Former CIA agent John R. Maguire and Blackwater founder Erik Prince The former CIA agent, John R. Maguire -...

The moon jellyfish is commonly found around the coastlines of Britain. They're known for their translucent white colour and gentle swimming movements. Until now, they were thought to have very few predators. But new findings published today in the journal Royal Society Open Science reveal that they are a veritable feast for a number of fish species. Lead researcher Philip Lamb, a PhD student in UEA's School of Biological Sciences, said: "Localised outbreaks of jellyfish cause a variety of ecological and economic problems such as overrunning fish farms and damaging revenues from tourism. But until now there has been little...

Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have found that jellyfish go into a sleep-like state, making them the first animals without a brain or central nervous system to do so. The findings push the origin of sleep further down the evolutionary tree of life - to before the emergence of a centralised nervous system. "It is the first example of sleep in animals without a brain," said Howard Hughes, from California Institute of Technology in the US. Researchers studied Cassiopea, a mostly stationary jellyfish native to mudflats, mangrove swamps, and other warm, shallow waters. The jellfish were kept in tanks...

Marine researchers have discovered a strange alien-like creature while exploring the underwater world found in the deepest ocean trench on Earth. A team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spotted the hydromedusa jellyfish during an expedition to the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. The sea creature was captured on film after it swam close to the surface of the ocean near the agency's research ship, the "Okeanos Explorer." Based on the team's observations, this new jellyfish species shares similar features with those of Crossota genus, which are known to spend the majority of their existence gliding...

A lamb that was genetically modified with jellyfish genes for advanced research was sold to a slaughterhouse for meat in France, according to European news accounts. An investigation to find out how the genetically-altered animal ended up as meat is underway, according to Le Parisien, the French newspaper that broke the story. "Rubis, the lamb, was found on a plate. Who ate her? No one knows. All that's known is the meat left a French slaughterhouse in November 2014" according to Le Parisien. The story states Rubis came from a program started in 2009 called "Green Mutton" within the scientific...

Alzheimer's could be prevented and even cured by boosting the brain's own immune response, scientists at Stanford University believe. Researchers discovered that nerve cells die because cells which are supposed to clear the brain of bacteria, viruses and dangerous deposits, stop working. These cells, called 'microglia' function well when people are young, but when they age, a single protein called EP2 stops them operating efficiently. Now scientists have shown that blocking the protein allows the microglia to function normally again so they can hoover up the dangerous sticky amyloid-beta plaques which damage nerve cells in Alzheimer's disease. The researchers found...

Norway's Beitstadfjord has been so severely invaded by monster deep sea jellyfish that, just two years since their arrival, they have driven out all of the local fish. The innermost arm of the Trondheimsfjord now holds an estimated 40,000 tonnes of the helmet jellyfish, only a few years after the fiery red peril first appeared in its waters. According to Norway's VG newspaper, Jarle Mork, a researcher at NTNU in Trondheim, caught vast quantities of the slimy animal in a single trawl. "We took up 3.5 tons of monster jellyfish in under ten minutes," he said. "There was a tremendous...

Comb Jelly Genome Gums Up Evolution by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Comb jellies (ctenophores) look like disco balls with flashing lights that dance and spin as they float around the ocean. These creatures are so fascinating that one neuroscientist likened them to "aliens who've come to earth."1,2 The genome of comb jellies has been sequenced, and it's as alien as the creature looks—utterly defying all predictions about its evolutionary origins.3 Even prior to recent advances in genome sequencing, comb jellies perplexed evolutionists. While they resemble a jelly fish in some ways, they have complex nervous systems that detect light, sense...

In a prehistoric version of "the chicken or the egg" question, researchers have long debated which animal group came first. A traditional view pegs sponges—marine creatures that look more like rocks or corals—as our ancient ancestors. But a new genetic study is stirring the waters, suggesting comb jellies, gelatinous marine animals that look similar to jellyfish, are actually the first animals to have evolved over 600 million years ago.

A regular day at the beach led to a surprising scientific discovery for one family in Australia last month—local resident Richard Lim and his family spotted a shockingly large jellyfish at a beach in Howden, a small town in Tasmania.The family did what anyone would do—take photos, of course—but they also shared the images with Lisa-ann Gershwin, a research scientist and jellyfish expert at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency. Gershwin’s first reaction upon seeing the photos? Pure shock, despite the fact that she’d already known about the new species. “I had seen what...

Scientists in Australia are working to classify a new species of giant jellyfish that washed up on a beach in Tasmania. A family found the 1.5m (5ft) jellyfish on a beach south of Hobart last month.

You may think what you see at 20 seconds into the video below is just a little jelly fish. But wait — you‘re about to be taken on a ride where you’ll see it grow, morph, undulate and still won’t know quite what this confounding, “easily the most insane animal footage ever caught on an undersea camera” is.

Potential military applications for 'Robojelly'  nearly as infinite as it's hydrogen energy supply... Robojelly in the lab _________________________________________________________________________________ Although still in early stages of development, researchers from Virginia Tech and UT at Dallas have created an amazing hydrogen-powered underwater drone that looks and moves like a jellyfish, pumping itself along via artificial muscles...  Robojelly is the first successful underwater robot ever created that uses external hydrogen as it's only power source, while it appears the opaque, plastic blob would be all but undetectable by the enemy when deployed for recon. The unit also holds promise for various underwater rescue/salvage operations. The...

A nuclear power station in eastern Scotland had to shut down its reactors after "high volumes" of jellyfish were found on its seawater filter screens, the operating company said Thursday. "Both units at Torness power station were manually shut down on 28 June, due to the high volumes of jelly fish fouling the cooling water screens," said a statement from EDF Energy, which runs the power station near Dunbar. It explained that the shutdown was purely a precautionary measure and insisted that "at no time was there a danger to the public", nor had there been any impact on the...