A few animals have made the deepest depths of the ocean their natural
habitat, which means they evolved to withstand enormous pressure. We
only get to see these animals by remote camera, unless you happen to be
James Cameron. But now Océanopolis, an aquarium in Brest, France, has
developed a special aquarium that maintains high pressure for those
animals, and lets us take a look.
Most creatures of the deep can survive only a few hours
at sea level (the drop in pressure messes up cell-to-cell communication
and causes paralysis), and any decompression can be fatal. But AbyssBox
inventor Bruce Shillito, a biophysicist at the Université Pierre et
Marie Curie in Paris, has devised a new tool that will allow sea animals
to be captured, brought to the surface, and transferred into an
AbyssBox, all at a constant pressure. So you might be able to make eye
contact with the deep-sea anglerfish before Cameron names himself king
of the underworld.
Right now the AbyssBox has a few deep-sea shrimps and crabs inside its 4.25 gallon display unit.
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