Quote:

---

As scientific adviser to a group of Maine watermen, ecologist Larry Harris had heard his share of stories. But one tale, told to him 2 years ago, proved unforgettable. A fisherman related how he had been hauling up a dredge used to scout for scallops in nearby Cobscook Bay when he snagged something novel: a life form resembling blobs of pancake batter.

In all his decades at sea, the man said, he'd never encountered anything like it...The stuff looked like it might have come from outer space.
It was an alien, all right, but one of Earthly origins....

Harris was fairly certain that the Cobscook encounter signaled bad news: arrival of what he calls "the tunicate from hell." This devilish species' behavior is a biologist's "worst nightmare," says Harris. This sea squirt reproduces rapidly by several means, has no known predator, and grows over and smothers any plant or animal that doesn't make way. ...

Over the past few years, the smothering mats have turned up in coastal waters as distant as those off western Canada, New Zealand, and Holland....

The Didemnum in U.S. waters is like a squirt on steroids. This "beast" grows several times faster than any other sea squirt known.... A colony's surface is acidic as ... stomach acid. Didemnum sp. grows on on any hard surface—from plastic to gravel—at apparently any depth. Whitlatch has seen it overgrow sponges, sedentary shellfish, and even sea grasses.... Although the lack of any apparent predator suggests that mats of Didemnum sp. are well defended, Whitlatch... induced mats of the Didemnum to spawn and then introduced crabs and certain fish renowned for dining on squirts. He now reports, "We have yet to find anything that will eat even these small Didemnum."

Another troubling lab observation: When it ran out of real estate, Didemnum sp. didn't stop growing, as other squirts do. In a glass tank fed by running water, the Didemnum mat covered the bottom, then grew up a wall. When that, too, was covered, the mat extended onto the underside of the water surface, suspended from a thin layer of bubbles. The colony apparently "used those bubbles as a flotation mechanism. How bizarre," Whitlatch says.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
With the economy being globalized and dependent on trade, how can we possibly keep this world from turning into a monoculture of resistant, noxious weeds and pests?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:


In a glass tank fed by running water, the Didemnum mat covered the bottom, then grew up a wall. When that, too, was covered, the mat extended onto the underside of the water surface, suspended from a thin layer of bubbles. The colony apparently "used those bubbles as a flotation mechanism.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Hero:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
With the economy being globalized and dependent on trade, how can we possibly keep this world from turning into a monoculture of resistant, noxious weeds and pests?

---

Stop voting for smelly, intolerant, annoying liberals (Michael Moore, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, et al).

H

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Early:

What are you talking about? You think its the "smelly, intolerant, annoying liberals" pushing globablization? Some that you might call liberals are, like Hillary, but Bush and the neo-cons are huge globalists. To be honest about it the far left and far right are against globalization...its the center thats for it. That includes most Democrats and Republicans in power. Oh, and no one has voted for Michael Moore because he isn't a politician.

---

Quote:

---

Liberals want to study, understand, protect, and ultimately accomodate them within our own system. Conservatives want to find and eliminate the invading species, and protect those at risk.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
Earth to Hero, earth to Hero... Last time I checked, it was "liberal" organizations that were fighting globalization, regulating ballast-water discharges and eradicating invasive species. I haven't noticed any "conservative" groups in the fight except maybe Pat Buchanan.

---

Quote:

---

Don't know much about ballast-water discharges, but liberals have been blowing it out their ### for decades.

---

Quote:

---

Liberal solutions: Stop looking for or listening to the invaders or just issue them drivers licenses and send them to college. Surrender abroad, accomodate at home. Make our allies surrender. Regulate everything, no more private property, Earth first and all that. Raise taxes.

---

Quote:

---

The Serenity OB is closing soon. -SergeantX

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Hero:
But its not the same vision. It all comes down to America's place in the world. Conservatives want to make the world America, raising them up to the greatness that freedom and liberty can bestow upon all people and cultures while preserving that which makes us all unique. Liberals want to drown America in the world, reducing us to a common level in some great sociological melting pot the eliminates sovereignty and leaves all persons, regardless of nationality, under the thumb of an intellectual elite dictating power through a pseudo-benign international entity like the UN.

---

Quote:

---

What are you talking about? You think its the "smelly, intolerant, annoying liberals" pushing globablization? Some that you might call liberals are, like Hillary, but Bush and the neo-cons are huge globalists. To be honest about it the far left and far right are against globalization...its the center thats for it. That includes most Democrats and Republicans in power. Oh, and no one has voted for Michael Moore because he isn't a politician.

---

Quote:

---

I haven't noticed any "conservative" groups in the fight except maybe Pat Buchanan.

---