Jurassic Park

electricity

Electricity. Without it, we couldn’t run life-saving machinery or straighten our hair (among other things). But have you ever wondered why it’s called ‘electricity’? Don’t worry, I’ve asked ChatGPT so you don’t have to.

Like a lot of words of the week, ‘electricity’ has its roots in ancient Greek. It comes from the Greek word ‘ἤλεκτρον’ (AKA elektron), which means ‘amber’ after the yellow fossilised tree resin which caused Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill et al so many issues in Jurassic Park.

Why? Well, the ancient Greeks noticed that when they rubbed amber with fur, it attracted small objects like feathers or bits of straw. They attributed that to a mysterious force within the amber. In the 16th and 17th centuries, scientists began to study similar phenomena in other materials (like using glass rods to generate static electricity), and coined the term ‘electricity’ to describe it. That was based on Latinising that Greek word ‘elektron’, and adding the suffix ‘-ity’ which denotes a state or condition (other examples of that include ‘equality’, ‘flexibility’ and ‘simplicity’).

Over time, as our scientific understanding of electricity expanded, we started to use the term to cover the whole range of electrical phenomena, including electric currents, electromagnetic fields and electrical energy.

As I’m writing about electricity while in Ely, a region previously known for its eel population, I think I have to spend a little bit of time talking about electric eels. They can generate electric shocks of up to 600 volts to stun prey or scare off predators. They can also deliver multiple shocks in rapid succession to immobilise whatever it is they’re trying to eat or frighten. This is down to specialised organs made up of thousands of electrocytes, which are electrically excitable cells (I don’t know what that means, but I like the sound of it). These organs can generate both high-voltage electric discharges for defence, and low-voltage ones for navigating and communicating. They can also detect minute electric fields generated by the muscle contractions of nearby prey. Electric eels can grow to over 8 feet (2.5 meters) long (WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK) and weigh up to 44 pounds (20 kilos). Thankfully they’re native to the Amazon and Orinoco River basins in South America, so you’re unlikely to run into one if you decide to take a dip in the Great Ouse.

Gratuitous Jeff-Goldblum-with-his-shirt-off scene from Jurassic Park. You're welcome.

extremophile

It’s another ‘-phile’ word this week, but there’s nothing to worry about, honest. An extremophile is an organism that thrives in extreme environments previously thought to be uninhabitable, for example under massive pressure or really bastard cold. These organisms not only tolerate these conditions – for many, they need them to survive. Extremophiles have been found 6.7 km below the Earth’s surface, more than 10km deep in the ocean at pressures of up to 110 MPa (which is a lot, apparently), in acid, in frozen seawater at -20°C and in underwater hydrothermal vents at temperatures of 122°C. The name is made from the Latin extremus meaning, um, ‘extreme’, and the Greek philiā which means ‘love’.

A tardigrade*. Doesn’t he look like he’s about to start singing ‘Always look on the bright side of life’?

Extremophiles are also normally polyextremophiles (‘poly’ meaning ‘many’), which means they can live in more than one shit place – for example, the deep ocean is generally very cold and also under high pressure. So that’s a double whammy. And most extremophiles are microorganisms, but not all – the tardigrade (which I thought was a made-up thing in Star Trek) is one example. Also known as a water bear or moss piglet (awwww), a tardigrade is a microscopic eight-legged animal that thrives in environments that would kill most other forms of life – on mountaintops including the Himalayas, at the bottom of the sea, in mud volcanoes (which are literally what they sound like) and even in solid ice. They can go up to 30 years without food or water, and have been on earth for about 600 million years, which means they pre-date the dinosaurs by a mere 400 million years.

Not long ago, some nice scientists chucked a load of tardigrades out into outer space to see what would happen. Not only did lots of them survive, but some of them even went on to have babies. And in August 2019, scientists reported that some tardigrades might be living on the moon after an Israeli lunar lander carrying thousands of them crash landed (although it’s since been reported that they probably didn’t survive the impact, booooo). Both of these things sound like the start of really good sci-fi horror films.

The name ‘water bear’ comes from the way tardigrades walk, which apparently resembles the way bears get around. The largest ones can get to a (still pretty tiny) 1.5mm, which means you can see them using a bog-standard microscope if you have such a thing.

Extremophiles like the tardigrade are proof that life can exist in many different forms, and that oxygen and water aren’t pre-requisites. In the words of well-known mathematician and chaos theory specialist Dr Ian Malcolm (AKA Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park): ‘Life, uh, finds a way.’

*Wikipedia says I have to credit that tardigrade photo with this horrible bit of text: photo by Bob Goldstein and Vicky Madden, UNC Chapel Hill – http://tardigrades.bio.unc.edu/pictures/ >https://www.flickr.com/photos/waterbears/sets/72157607218607395/ >https://www.flickr.com/photos/waterbears/2851666759/in/album-72157607218607395 (note permission below), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4747599).