Popular Science has just published its annual "Ten worst jobs in science" issue, and two of them are in marine science! How is this possible? Marine science is clearly the best job since, well, ever. Hmmmm, lets take a closer look.
1. Oceanic Snot Diver. The name sounds gross enough, but what does it
mean? Well, it turns out that they are talking about collecting "sea snot" true enough, but to call it nasty is a bit of a beat-up, IMHO. Scientists call this stuff "aggregates", and its an incredibly important part of the nutrient cycle in the ocean. Really, sea snot is just the secreted mucus and fecal casts of hordes of plankton. Wait a sec, when you write it like that, it
does sound gross! Its biggest role is in "exporting" nutrients from the surface layers of the ocean, where the sun sponsors all that plankton growth, to the dark depths, where sunlight never penetrates, but life nonetheless thrives. Not only do some animals down there eat the stuff (ew), but at those
crushing depths, some of the snot also dissolves under the immense pressure of all the water above it, much like snow melting before it reaches the ground. In this way, the snot plays a very important part in taking nutrients produced at the surface, and dissolving them in the water at great depths. Maybe not the most attractive concept, but pretty important in the grand scheme of things. Like Tom Cruise says in The Firm: "Its not sexy, but its got teeth".
2. Whale slasher. OK, I have to concede that one. I've seen a few stranded whales being cut up on the beach (this is called a necropsy, not an autopsy, which is reserved for people only), and it pongs. I'm not talking sweat sock pong, or even doggy-breath-after-eating-goose-poo pong, but serious, invasive, gets-into-your-hair, throw-your-clothes-away stink. While the cause of death is always interesting, wading through week-old whale giblets that have been baking on the beach? Not so fresh...
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 10:00AM 
Reader Comments (1)
Probably it's the "stink" that scares people off from becoming whale slashers. I personally would want to try doing necropsy on whales some time. But hope they come up with a mask or something that makes the stink tolerable, at least.
Darwin Jones
www.mylittlerockjobs.com