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Earth

Ocean swimmers stir the seas

29 July 2009

Video: See the jellyfish at work

NEXT time you go for a dip in the sea, bear in mind that your deft front crawl is helping to mix up the waters. In fact, marine life may be stirring the oceans and moving nutrients around as much as winds or tides.

According to a theory proposed by , a body moving through water drags some of the fluid with it. In “Darwin drift”, a high-pressure zone forms at the front of each swimming animal, leaving an area of lower pressure behind, which draws in adjacent water.…

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