THINGS WE NEVER KNEW

Written by Mark Young

It takes a drive through Kansas to really understand why it’s called the Sunflower State. In places, sunflower fields extend in every direction, and as far off as you can see. If you have never observed a large field of sunflowers, the sight is awesome beyond the expanse of yellow. You think at first that it’s because the plants are so much taller and larger than you imagined. Then it dawns on you. In stunning symmetry, they appear to be around the same height, and face in exactly the same direction. You may not even realize at first why they are aimed the same way, and that’s the next cool thing. Before they reach full flower, they face the sun as it comes up in the morning and the entire field rotates in grand unison as the sun moves across the sky, to the west by the end of the day. At the top of the Earth, where the sun never sets, scientists have observed sunflowers strangle themselves as they follow the sun circling the rim of the horizon. Any question where the plant got its name?

Even if you don’t know or care anything about sunflowers, this scant bit of information puts them in a whole new light (sorry). It can make you wonder about other things like, gee, what causes them to do that? Do they unwind at night? Do they follow the full moon, too? And even if these few facts don’t make you want to know more, it becomes great trivia for a dinner conversation.

This sidelong example shows that even seemingly simple things can become interesting with knowledge and a few basic facts. Now take something that actually interests us, like diving. As we become better informed the experience becomes more interesting and, in the process, in a way, so do we.

We have entered our 20th year publishing this magazine. There is so much about this activity and its environs to know, for anyone who wants to, and we felt that an educational publication that follows the light was more than needed. So we consider our tenure grateful confirmation that the interest in learning more about diving and what surrounds it is indeed pretty strong. People wondered early on if a magazine themed Dive Training would have enough to write about; there has certainly been enough content.

And it doesn’t run out. There is a long list of interesting dive-related topics that we would like to share with you in this edition, and in future editions. Take jellyfish, for example. We all know what they are but what really gives? This creature is complex in its simplicity. It turns out there is an awful lot to know about jellies, and author Greg Laslo takes us on another tour of a bizarre subject with the cover story that begins on Page 20.

We hope that after reading the article you will never look at jellyfish the same way again. Just like you may never look at sunflowers in quite the same way. So, do they unwind at night? When it comes to pondering what we know and what we don’t, perhaps the best questions revolve around the things that we are interested in and think we know, or never knew, but would like to learn much more about. To help make your diving experience complete, we will continue to keep you in the know about lots of different and interesting topics — lighting interest, we hope, for a few more decades.