There was a time, in the late 19th, when we thought that the entirety of the seafloor was covered by "an amorphous sheet of a protein compound, irritable to a low degree and capable of assimilating food... a diffused formless protoplasm." 🧪🌊 1/6 🧵 www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/88303#p... - ThreadSky

obialik.bsky.social • 26 days ago

There was a time, in the late 19th, when we thought that the entirety of the seafloor was covered by "an amorphous sheet of a protein compound, irritable to a low degree and capable of assimilating food... a diffused formless protoplasm." 🧪🌊 1/6 🧵
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/88303#page/211/mode/1up

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obialik.bsky.social•26 days ago

This eldrich monstrosity was called Bathybius haeckelii by T.H. Huxley in honor of Haeckel (the one we're still obsessed with his taxonomy drawings) because he fought he discovered the primordial slime (Urschleim). Haeckel hypothesized was the bridge between inorganic matter and organic life. 2/6 🧵

obialik.bsky.social•26 days ago

The thing that happened was that Huxley revisited an old sample, and found an amorphous slimy material in it that wasn't there before, and concluded that has to be the Urschleim.
His claim, being so foundational, did not go unchallenged. If only there were some more samples... 3/6 🧵

obialik.bsky.social•26 days ago

The 1872–1876 Challenger expedition crisscrossed the oceans and found no evidence of Bathybius. But in 1875, the ship chemist (one J.Y. Buchanan) noticed that when a calcium sulfate precipitate reacts with alcohol (the preserving fluid), it forms a gel-like substance.
4/6 🧵

obialik.bsky.social•26 days ago

The expedition reported that to Huxley, he did what every good scientist should do - he admitted his mistake and published a letter in Nature (yes, Nature is that old). From there on, he advocated against Bathybius, which he had to do, because Haeckel refused to accept the findings.
5/6 🧵

obialik.bsky.social•26 days ago

But the big mess wasn't that. Huxley was a major supporter of the theory of evolution (to the point he was known as "Darwin's Bulldog"), and opponents of evolution used the Bathybius debacle to discredit him and muddy the water.
6/6 🧵

obialik.bsky.social•26 days ago

Sidenote - I do want to emphasize how important the Challenger expedition was, as were multiple large-scale expeditions since. There is still much we don't know about the ocean and it's past, and these sorts of projects are critical to address that.
7/6 🧵

christophstc.bsky.social•26 days ago

"...because he fought he discovered..."

fought? thought? but fighting he did, with all his teeff, for sure

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