The deep ocean’s consummate darkness creates a problem for the scientists who want to study its denizens. Researchers can’t see what’s around them unless they turn on their submersible’s lights, but doing so is devastating for creatures that have adapted to a lightless life. Even moonlight can blind a deep-sea shrimp in a few seconds. A submersible’s headlights will do much worse. Some deep-sea animals end up doing kamikaze runs at subs. Startled swordfish ram them with their swords. Other creatures freeze or flee. “The way to think about ocean exploration is that we probably create a sphere a
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