The Greenland Shark, the Longest-Living Vertebrate on Earth (2017) | Hacker News Reader

The Greenland Shark, the Longest-Living Vertebrate on Earth (2017)

newyorker.com

55 pointsrbanffy45 comments

A buddy of mine did an episode of his YouTube show about diving with Greenland Sharks in the mouth of the St Lawrence river, and he got some nice footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kS89k6DjnM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_shark

> The flesh of the Greenland shark is toxic because of the presence of high concentrations of urea and trimethylamine oxide (TMAO).

Evolution can be so clever.

Yes, but

- "The meat of the Greenland shark is poisonous when fresh because of its high urea and trimethylamine oxide content. However, when properly processed, it may be consumed safely.[3][4] "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hákarl

The reaction quotes are intriguing,

"That's hardcore. That's serious food. You don't want to mess with that. That's not for beginners." · "awful", "like a jellied cube of ammonia" albeit "technically edible" · "reminiscent of "blue cheese but a hundred times stronger" · "like chewing a urine-infested mattress"

Ah yes, that most well-known Icelandic innovation...

Somewhere there's a video of some Youtubers who are relevant in another niche eating that as part of a trip to Iceland. The Icelandic guy hosting them isn't a fan but eats it. The second guy tries it and hates it. The guy who was a connoisseur of french stuff says "it's like a good stinky french cheese" and asks for more.

I’ve had it and it doesn’t taste that bad. If you don’t mind blue cheese, it’s not that much worse.

It smells like cleaning fluid from under your sink cabinet though. That’s the main issue.

I've had it as well, and it made me wretch just to smell it. It smelled like ammonia mixed with rotting fish (because that's exactly what it is). I did get a piece down, and you're right, the taste wasn't as bad. But yeah... all set with that now.

I have also had it and it tastes like drain cleaner with the texture of angry spam. Only a third of a bottle of Brennivin made the whole experience even remotely enjoyable.

Something about the phrase "angry spam" makes me chuckle maniacally.

I do love me some cheeses with some stank.

Your comment has made me want to try it. In your telling, it is probably a similar level of challenge as Natto:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natt%C5%8D

Natto is way more palatable. I like to eat natto and I buy it from a grocery store in the states in frozen styrofoam packs of three. I’m not Japanese but I liked it when this hotel in Japan offered it at breakfast.

Apparently commercial natto doesn’t really smell that bad because they figured out how to reduce it. If you enjoy smelly cheese, natto is comparable. Taste-wise, it’s meaty and takes soy sauce well and pairs well with rice. The slime isn’t great but kind of disappears into the rice.

I’ve heard traditional Natto is worse but I haven’t had it. Even in Japan, the natto I got was commercial. You can get natto at Denny’s Japan.

That said, I did have one friend that couldn’t stand the smell at all. Most friends that I’ve offered it to are mostly put off by the slime. They look like slimey spider eggs.

I have observed it stinks less now than when I first encountered it decades ago. I am unsure the provenance of the stuff I first tried, but you could immediately smell it from across the room once the package was opened.

As far as I can tell, the descriptions in your first and second paragraphs are in stark conflict.

What if you love blue cheese. I freaking love blue cheese.

Natto/Hakarl/Haggis face-off.

Haggis isn’t bad if nobody tells you what’s in it. I thought it was some kind of Scottish Hamburger Helper.

Surströmming: hold my beer

what does hold my beer mean? I can guess it's an idiom, and can obviously google, but it is more fun to ask here.

I would explain it to you, but I’m holding this beer I’m drinking…

here, lemme hold that beer while you explain, and I'll drink it off for you. fair exchange ;)

does your vision get reversed after drinking?

q coz of ur username.

just sayin ;)

Joke: What are a redneck’s last words? Answer: “Hold my beer and watch this!”

(Where “redneck” is cultural slang for working class, uneducated man, or at least one with poor impulse control).

Other terms from English:

Country bumpkin

Hillbilly

Hick

Clodhopper

In common use, the (and watch this) is left unsaid and implied. I.e. the speaker is really excited to immediately do something that's a terrible idea, without even stopping to explain.

"How the heck are we going to get the alligator out of the pool?"

"Hold my beer..."

rednecks rush in where angels fear to tread.

Toxic perhaps, but it didnt stop the icelanders.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hákarl

I find it sad that these sharks which naturally live so long, who have no recorded attacks on humans, and whose flesh is toxic to humans, are still killed and eaten by humans.

To be fair, Greenlanders didn't have a lot of choice back then. You don't take extensive time to process food that's naturally toxic unless you really have to

I have eaten some before they are not that bad even after they soak it in lye

https://archive.is/xbNna

> With the help of a mathematical model that linked size with age, they estimated that one sixteen-foot female was at least two hundred and seventy-two years old, and possibly as much as five hundred and twelve years old. Because it is difficult to establish background carbon-14 levels in the ocean, and because Nielsen and his colleagues didn’t know which part of the ocean the sharks had been born in, the figure was inexact. Still, it firmly established Greenland sharks as the longest-living vertebrates on Earth. In theory, the biggest ones could be nearly six centuries old.

Can you imagine what a boring existence they must have? Live forever, and do almost nothing.

Well luckily for them, I’d imagine they don’t think too hard about it.

You're right, they should totally die much earlier from stress-related illnesses like the rest of us!

You can also think of it as calm bliss.

wu wei, nirvana, shanti, samadhi, fana, ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_(Buddhism)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fana_(Sufism)

i gave two links, you guys can google the others.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I consider that book/trilogy/fiveology to be canon and nothing can convince me otherwise

different strokes for boring folks - like you.

If you like to imagine yourself as a fish you could do much worse than these guys! The male anglerfish comes to mind..

>A Greenland shark's heart beats once every 10 seconds (6 times per minute).

More fuel for the fire for the theory that we all get about the same number of heartbeats in a lifetime. Well, I'm off to do my weekly long run to lower my resting heart rate during the week.

Good news- I still have a much lower resting heart rate from running years ago- I haven't run in about 12 years due to compounding injuries- but the benefits are still there. It's finally starting to go up to normal, but it used to freak nurses and doctors when they'd measure it.

I feel like gains from running stay with you a long time also. Once I was a runner, it was so much easier to go back to running five miles easily if I ever quit and went back to it. I think there is some body and muscle memory that remains.

I wonder how the benefits of running regularly compare to living in an area where most of your daily trips are taken by bike or walking.

I think I've read that true endurance and strength of your heart is built running over one hour at a time and in my experience that seems true. Our bodies are so lazy and don't make changes until they absolutely have to. I run 7 miles every Sunday or so. I based that number on that and this paper which shows mortality vs. distance run per week. People that run too much have mortality like a sedentary person!

https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(16)...

I read long back somewhere that bjorn borg had a resting heart rate or pulse rate (I don't know if the two are the same) of 37 or 39.

I think it was in a reader's digest issue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_Borg

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