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Week 9 [21.12-10.01.2021] – Zombie Starfish

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How good do you know starfish? Of course, since childhood we know what they are, but have you ever wondered how they can "see" without their eyes? Or what happens if some of them lose their hand? You will find the answers to some of these questions in the video below, and even more - there will be some words about some strange starfish behavior caused by some deadly virus (Yes, I know a very unusual topic now).     



 

 

Questions: 
1) What is your idea about the reason why these starfish are acting so weird after being infected by virus?  
2) If we know that this virus already existed in 1940, why did the starfish start to behave so strangely only right now? Do you think it's possible for the virus to mutate or we just haven't been able to explore the oceans so well and we just haven't noticed it before? 

Comments

Viktor Ryś said…
1.
It could be that it is a form of self-defense of the body. One of the arms of the start fish could be infected and therefore knowing that starfish can grow a new arm they simply get rid of the ill one.


2.
I think that both scenarios are equally likely. We know thast the deep underwater spaces are yet to be discovered and it could in fact be a phenomena originating in the 1940s. Also the degrading water quality and polution caused by the humans could be another key factor in the recent increase in this phenomena
3 January 2021 at 20:31
Ania Rzeczyca said…
At first I would like to say, that starfish are very cute. I love them <3 I had no idea about inner body shape of starfishes. There are amazing!

1. I guess that reproducing instinct while new virus presence sounds pretty logic. For sure there are some invertible behaves during facing a new disease among their population. Maybe getting hurt mobilize their immune system to increased fight with any threat.

2. For sure we don’t know everything about marine life. There is a lot to discover down there. It is very hard to explore and study environment deep in the ocean because of pressure, darkness and costs of it.
Virus could mutate and affects starfishes differently, so their natural defence instinct tells them to do, what their usually do under threat.

I hope their gonna be ok  Keep my fingers crossed!
9 January 2021 at 12:53
s16427 said…
1) It trully hard to say. My best guess is it causes some kind of "starfish fever", which can cause irrational behaviour. Other idea is that virus here works in somewhat like a parsite and it's sole purpose is to be spread. And like a parasite, it takes over the host's body to infect other animals. And personally, the parasite-like idea makes me shiver. I guess that's just because of my imagination and way too many horror movies watched.

2)Simpliest solution would be to just assume that virus mutated and we couldn't notice those strange behaviours before. I think we just didn't have the data to notice it. Since 1940s, marine technology advanced incredibly, allowing us to gain much more knowledge about sealife. Right now, we can monitor non-stop unlimited number of specimens, at multiple locations. What a time to be alive! So to sum up, I just believe that incredible amonut of data, we can aquire today, let us notice their strange behaviour.
10 January 2021 at 12:42
Illia Kalinin said…
1) What is your idea about the reason why these starfish are acting so weird after being infected by virus?

Assume that the virus creates painful feelings in the starfishes parts and they a trying to escape from it in the same way as they do with the crab in the video - by detaching the harmed part.

2) If we know that this virus already existed in 1940, why did the starfish start to behave so strangely only right now? Do you think it's possible for the virus to mutate or we just haven't been able to explore the oceans so well and we just haven't noticed it before?

The possibility of the virus mutation seems real for me. Every virus has its own incubation period and it is really hard to spot the difference with starfishes if it appears once in 80 years.
10 January 2021 at 15:06
Krzysztof Kopeć said…
@Viktor Ryś
Yes good point! but how starfish could know that it is infected?
10 January 2021 at 18:35
Krzysztof Kopeć said…
@s16427
Thank you for your comment! I haven't thought about it in that way, so it is very interesting view for me.
10 January 2021 at 18:38
Robert Gawryś-Poniewierka said…
1. That's a very interesting question and unfortunately we can only divagate about the possible reason for what's happening to these starfish. Virus could for example simulate stimuli related to pain, which would explain this theoretically masochistic actions taken by octopuses. Between humans there is also a rare psychological disorder making the patient think and feel that one of their limbs or parts of body is not really theirs. In some of the extreme cases, the patients end up self-amputating parts of their body in order to relieve themselves of this feeling. Perhaps the virus makes octopuses feel similarly?

2. Many scientist agree on the fact that we have explored surface of the moon better than depths of our oceans. Perhaps the virus mutated, we haven't seen it in action previously or we just were very unlucky, but in terms of deep-sea research, the conditions only make such discoveries harder.
10 January 2021 at 23:42
Bartłomiej Rurarz said…
1) What is your idea about the reason why these starfish are acting so weird after being infected by virus?

I think that's a typical solution for microorganisms, if any part of it is "infected" or unable to work properly, it has to get rid of it. I can only assume that.


2) If we know that this virus already existed in 1940, why did the starfish start to behave so strangely only right now? Do you think it's possible for the virus to mutate or we just haven't been able to explore the oceans so well and we just haven't noticed it before?

Viruses are confirmed to mutate, that's just a typical chain reaction. But on the other hand, in 1940 we couldn't explore oceans so precisily. I can only guess because I'm no specialist in this field, but I would say it could be both of these things.
10 January 2021 at 23:58
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