Currents at the bottom of the ocean can be just as fickle as wind currents at the surface. They can turn, speed up or slow down, and even reverse course. And they can change in just days or even hours.
That’s the conclusion of the most detailed study of sea-floor currents to date. Researchers anchored 34 instrument packages across a thousand-square-mile region off the coast of Mozambique, at the southeastern corner of Africa. The instruments monitored the currents for four years.
One of the most famous symbiotic relationships in the animal kingdom is the clownfish and its anemone. Symbiosis is the close association between two different species where at least one benefits from the arrangement. Scientists have long known the advantages clownfish and anemones offer one another, but one mystery has stumped them for a century: How do clownfish avoid getting stung by the nematocysts, or stinging cells, on an anemone’s tentacles, which it uses to catch its prey?
