Underwater pressure is intense. Ask any deep-sea diver what it feels like the further you go down and your brain might still not be able to wrap around it. But, unrelated, here’s what played in my head the entirety of my time reading this article from Science. Enjoy both!

Some of us thrive under pressure. Others can’t function without it. And then there are deep-sea comb jellies: Their thin, flowing bodies literally disintegrate if they leave their abyssal homes, where pressures reach 400 bar—roughly equivalent to the weight of 15 African elephants sitting in the palm of your hand. Now, researchers have discovered why: The cell membranes of these jellies depend on extreme pressures to function and retain their delicate shape.

The finding, reported today in Science, is “a seminal contribution to understanding life in high-pressure environments,” says Douglas Bartlett, a deep-sea microbiologist at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) not involved with the study. “This is a totally new way to think about adaptation to the deep sea.”

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