Sargasso Sea: The Only Sea Without Shores

Sargasso Sea surrounded by currents

Floating Seaweed (Sargassum)

 Sargasso Sea is a unique and mysterious area in the North Atlantic Ocean. It's defined by the boundary currents that surround it: the Gulf Stream in the west, the North Atlantic Current in the north, the Canary Current in the east, the North Atlantic Equatorial Current in the south. It stretches from 20 degrees N to 35 degrees N, and 40 degrees W to 70 degrees W. It is strewn with free-floating seaweed of the genus Sargassum, after which it was named by Portuguese sailors in the 15th century.

Weaker horses were thrown overboard to save water
for better ones

 The sea is a warm lens-shaped body of water sitting on top of cooler water, and is higher by a meter in its middle than around its edges. It is a biological desert with low nutrients; the floating seaweed actually grows in near-shore areas before being carried out by currents to the Sargasso. The sea's dangerous reputation comes from its location in the almost windless Horse latitudes between 30 and 35 degrees N; the air in this region is often so still that sailing ships were becalmed and stranded there for months at a time, thus prolonging the voyage and resulting in water shortages. Weaker horses were thrown overboard to save water for better ones or even slaughtered for fresh meat.

  Sailors mistakenly thought that sailing ships drifted endlessly because they were entangled in the weeds. Adding to their fears, small shipworms in tropical waters sometimes turned the sides of a becalmed ship into a rotted mass. The shipworm's ability to digest cellulose enabled it to bore into submerged wood faster than kids ate candy. Over time, the seaweed and its fauna were transformed in stories into monsters and giant squid that could take down any ship. At present, even though ships travel frequently through Sargasso Sea and people even go diving there, the stories made up by long dead superstitious sailors still live on. What can I say, the public loves a mystery. On the bright side, these stories inspired a lot of great fictitious plots and novels that many enjoy.


 GOBI (Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative) recently proposed Sargasso Sea as an EBSA (Environmentally and Biologically Significant Area) because of its following properties:

• Unique in the world as the only area that is a center of distribution for a self-sustaining community of holopelagic drift algae.
• Provides a structured habitat for a wide range of fauna, including endemic, threatened, and commercially important species.
• Spawning site and migratory route for several species (eels, marlin, tuna, loggerhead sea turtles, humpback whales)

 My favorite species in the sargassum's fauna is the Histrio histrio because it's a perfect example of symbiosis. It's an ambush predator that mimics the color and texture of the seaweed to avoid being seen; thank god they're much smaller than us!

Histrio histrio (Sargassumfish)

Should Women Work?

 

'Should women work?' is a question often asked – even though the answer is clearer than the morning sun on a cloudless Friday. It's a resounding YES. In our day and age, such questions are similar to questioning the roundness of the earth: redundant contemplations that shift our focus away from important issues. But, apparently, there are people from the Stone Age living among us today who argue that women must stay at home to uphold their sacred duties of cooking, cleaning, raising kids and such. How ridiculous.

  Simply put, both men and women have a head on their shoulders. Females actually get better grades than males; the yearly results at my university testify to this consistently. Moreover, women are half of the world's population. Therefore, entirely excluding them from the workforce will decrease production dramatically. In the past few decades, the increase in female employment in the first world has been the main cause of growth. Over the coming years, prejudices will slowly disappear giving women a chance to increase their productivity and income even more.

  Throughout history, many prominent women have impacted the world: visionaries, warriors, humanitarians and leaders. Names such as Florence Nightingale, Benazir Bhutto, Rosa Parks and Margaret Thatcher are instantly recognizable to most people. Dorothy Hodgkin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for confirming the structure of penicillin, and then the structure of vitamin B12, which improved healthcare by a milestone. Joan of Arc led the French to victory against the English at Orleans - at the tender age of seventeen. Yes, that's right, only seventeen.

  An issue of The Economist mentions that some people think that if more women work rather than mind their children, this will cause lower birth rate among other negative social phenomena. Yet developed countries where more women work have higher birth rates than other countries where women stay at home. Lois Hoffman, a professor of psychology in the University of Michigan, published a study called The Effects of the Mother's Employment on the Family and the Child with very interesting conclusions, most of which are positive: 'the higher academic outcomes for children, benefits in their behavioral conduct and social adjustment, and the higher sense of competence and effectiveness in daughters'.

  Women should have the right to choose the way they would like to live their life, without pressure from others. It's also necessary to create a balance between family and work; being a workaholic is an extreme that's wrong for both men and women. In closing, life is not a war between both sexes, but a cooperation for a better future.