To welcome our pulsing, gelatinous overlords!

If that's American-style fridge sized, be very scared. Though they may be able to dispense ice to soothe your injuries.

Think we need outer space alien octopus to kill them using mechanical goldfish to wipe out these killers.

You were meant to send to:

stories@newsoftheworld.com

not the @theregister.co.uk

just tell the chinese, they'll do a nice jelly stir fry with them, and it'll be no. 201 on the menu in double quick time

These things are just not nice, any jellyfish, just say no. A *dead one* brushed against my arm once and I was rolling around in agony all afternoon. Take off and nuke from orbit - please!

would like to welcome our new gelatinous overlords.

I don't understand the tone of your article, making fun in every line you wrote. I saw a documentary 2 years ago, on the jellyfish at the Sea of Japan, and this is very serious business. It's a shame that you couldn't refrain yourself from mocking it...

Nuff said.

Mine's the drysuit, thanks.

"Ladies and gentlemen, er, we've just lost the picture, but, uh, what we've seen speaks for itself. The cargo ship has been taken over -- "conquered", if you will -- by a master race of giant jellyfish. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the jellyfish will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new jellyfish overlords."

Mine is the one covered in slime, ta.

Can I be the first to welcome our all powerful gelatinous overlords of the sea?

that I for one welcome our fridge-sized, stinging, gelatenous overlords...

"some the size of fridges"

What kind of fridge?

Welcome our new slimy overlords. Anyone got a board with a nail in it?

Or... a perfect case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

Reminded of that episode of Blake's 7 where aliens have taken over Star One and when they get shot turn into what can only be described as massive jelly style bogies?

The point about the fist sized jellyfishes gave me visions of them trying to invade divers through their wetsuits. I'm a landlubber and staying well away from the ocean now!

All in all this is pretty scary stuff. When are the Western governments going to declare war on jellyfishes and declare posession of any gelatinous creature a terrorist offence? "Stay back copper! I've got a jar of jellied eels here and I'm not afraid to use them!"...

would like to welcome our new, tentacle clad overlords.

.. just process them somehow to make biofuels?

I, for one, welcome our new gelatinous, fridge-sized, see-though masters.

presumably because we don't have enough ice cream to fight the jelly monsters.

Crap article: it didn't say if they were raspberry, strawberry or lime flavoured!

our gelatinous floating fridge-sized overlords

Sounds like a biofuel to me, can we make them into stuff I can put in a car?

they arise... slimethulu!

or something.

mines the one with the oozing pockets...

"...gradually slimed into extinction by unstoppable liquescent assassins."

Thanks Lewis, you now owe me a new keyboard.

... Fire Breathing buses & taxi's.

Is this a new measure of volume? There is potentially room for something between the football and the Olympic-sized swimming pool.

I for one will avoid tired "I for one" comments and instead think up some kind of reference to wondrous grot and secret cells.

I guess you could talk about climate change as the latter fire that heats the deep, actually. A win for victorian poetry!

"Humanity's rule may not be overturned in a Day, then, but a Night of Slime as the squelchy brutes cut the power and plunge the peoples of the Earth into their final darkness."

A darkness punctuated by the eerie glow of green fluorescent protein, which may explain the Nobel committee's decision on the chemistry prize this year.

Cnidarian, surely?

Mine's the one with the anti-venom and the fridge magnets in the pockets.

I remember when Winchester drives were also fridge-size. It's only a matter of time before these jellies become convenient lappy-size too.

These are just the babies, hatched from the mothership deep beneath the waves.

"..It's a shame that you couldn't refrain yourself from mocking it..."

This is an article by Lewis Page on The Register. It's to be expected. You know he makes sense.

P.S. It's either '..refrain from mocking..' or '..restrain yourself from mocking..' You probably got confused there.

So what are these things? Scyphozoan, hydrozoan, both? We need to know how to addrees them once they become our overlords.

The one with the blancmange in the pockets, ta.

All we need to do is breed some two tonne turtles to eat them.

</gamera>

The jelly-monsters are the advance guard. Cthulu is on Its way. And them in the black helicopters are already in Its service.

... I'm buying a nuclear bunker for when the jellyfish and machines slog it our over who will rule us. Me I'm in favour of the machines, they make better coffee.

Playmobil mock up of how this fight could look, in the interests of the public you know, we need to be prepared for this messy war (oh so messy).

Mines the one that has 'mahine overlords forever' on the back and on the inside has 'jelly fish overlords forever' (well you never know who will get the upper hand).

And much like the "Run Up Stairs" solution to Dalek Invasion, may I say

"Stay out of the water?" for the Jelly Fish invasion?

So do we need to update the jolly roger appropriately?

Do all El Reg contributors have a metaphor quota? Lewis seems to be attempting it in one article...

If not, why not? ae they A rated fridges?

After all, we're the ones who have modified our climate to make it more cozy for the jellyfish, so it's our own fault. Now we need peanut-butter fish to go with them.

Blast them with UV rays! That's what Capt Kirk did to the ones he encountered on Deneva on stardate 3287.2... that's probably why their spawning grounds are in dark dank parts of the oceans, systematically cleansed of vertebrate life.

Oh woe is mankind, for Steve Irwin is gone, protector of us from seaborne invasions!

In that case we can just call in Mr and Mrs Samuel Brainsample. They must be getting on a bit but I'm sure they're still up to the job.

The jellyfish are breeding, swarming and eating cos there's an abundance of certain types of food, which is because we've been overfishing certain other fish that eat that same food. Jellyfish swarms are a bit of a ocean balancing-act and within a short period of time the amount of available food will start to drop and the jellyfish population with it.

If we stop the overintensive fishing now, the whole thing should work itself out quite nicely.

Let's vary our fish diets and stop throwing catch overboard. Let's make sure we don't haul whole shoals out of the see in a oner.

All will be well.

...the only person in the world to have a 27 volume thesaurus?

I've never heard so many different words to mean the same thing.

Society must be protected from gelatinous terror slime gangsters. This is why we need the 42 days detention without charge extension. Think of the children too please.

Next they'll start hunting us with their high pressure tanks with remote-controlled flying tentacles invading the coasts. Wait until they sink our nuclear subs and use the fissibles to heat the Poles and drown us all.

and such a long time before Wimbledon.

Take some diced cucumber, a dash of cayenne pepper, a squeeze of lemon and you've got yourself a perfect little jellyfish salad. Good anytime but expecially nice with a side of fried calamari as the textures and temperatures play well off each other.

"These frightful blancmange sargassos send out their wobbling hordes on fearful expeditions of destruction, "

- sounds like Portsmouth

Judging by the state of our slug-infested garden, it's indeed a global jelly power drive and not just them jellyfish taking over the aqueous 75% of earth's surface.

Mind you, this year the land parts have been looking suspiciously watery...

Or is it called climate change now? I forget what the latest PC slogan is for this scare tactic, but I'm sure the jellyfish hoardes can be blamed on global warming by some global climate "expert" who needs some free publicity.

...the army of toast soldiers. They will make short work of all that jelly.

"When jellyfish populations run wild," the NSF jellyboffins warn, "they may jam thousands of square miles with their pulsing, gelatinous bodies."

Replace "jellyfish" with "people", and you have the average Saturday night on High Street ...

For some of us with busy lives*; El Reg is the only place to look for post Cnidarian survival guides (and Paris Hilton updates).

You should have included the useful hint that many jellyfish venoms can by pissing on it - the wound, not the jellyfish - that just makes them angry.

* for certain definitions of the word 'busy'.

or pretty frikkin' close...

They're not available to help - they've gone to the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda.

(Thanks for the chuckle)

the "I for one welcome our [...] overlords" meme has now well and truly jumped the shark, or, as I believe the hip kids are saying these days, "nuked the fridge".

But wait, that's no fridge... Ah, suddenly it becomes clear: these fridge-sized terror machines are the genetically mutated descendants of jellyfish which were casually hanging about and working on their tan in the Pacific during 50s A-bomb tests and have now come to seek their revenge and some decent Factor 8bn with moisturiser.

Now do you see what science has wrought?

The scariest thing about this is that, due to namby-pamby protesters we are left helpless in the face of this threat. I hope you're happy. I really do.

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the basement irradiating turtles. And newts.

Read it, it explains all about this.

Hit Dice only 4d10+32. Not that difficult...

hmm, i wonder.. can we eat them? lol.

the biofuel idea sound like a good one.

please let me know as soon as they squidge and wobble their way onto the land...

Um, Scyphozoa and Hydrozoa are both classes within phylum Cnidaria, so what exactly is your point? Lewis is perfectly correct in that true jellyfish are members of the class Scyphozoa, but several members of the Hydrozoa are often referred to as jellyfish even though they are not.

If you're going to be pedantic, at least get it fucking right.

pissing on it - the wound, not the jellyfish - that just makes them angry.

ha ha; nice try, but i put my drink down first!

... those frickin' lasers to fit on sharks' heads and then they can zap this jellyfish menace into oblivion!

"OVERLORDS: Can I be the first to welcome our all powerful gelatinous overlords of the sea?"

Yes, provided you post early for sick mess.

Whoa there! Spoiler warning! I havent finished that one yet...

I heartily condone The Kraken Wakes, though. Its good readings.

All this talk of blancmange has given me the munchies ! And can you get your local takeaway to do a late night strawberry blancmange ? Course not so Im doomed to go off to bed dreaming of pink wobbly things :(

Paris for obvious reasons

You've shown your true geekness sir and for that act of braveness I salute you.

What? Is this a Monty Python sketch or something? Do they turn their victims into Scotsmen?

I hope you're right about us not eating certain fish stocks into extinction. I, too, await the day when we collectively see sense. It will be a joyous day, because it will allow me to bring back one of my favourite palindromes from retirement: Doc, note, I dissent! A fast never prevents a fatness! I diet on cod.

@Mike Richards: way I heard it, vinegar neutralises the sting. Might want that with a pinch of salt though.

And now (in honour of the distinctly pythonesque vista of blancmange overlords) for something completely different: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nej4xJe4Tdg

"The Kraken Wakes"

Mr Blobby !!

if I hadn't had the pants scared off me by numerous TV and other type stories of the end of civilisation etc. by Mega Tsunamis, crashing Asteroids, Mega Vocanoes and so on.

I did see the TV program about the Jellyfish a year ago (from memory) , but since then nothing about it,

Much about the horror of Global Warming / Climate Change , which is a wonderful thing for Governments everywhere, as they can tax us up to the eyeballs to save us from extermination.

If they can link Warming and Jellyfish then there will be much publicity.

I have seen the Black Sea disaster with my own eyes and your attempt at replicating the Sun style is frankly not funny.

There is however a simple way to save the planet - stop overfishing. The jellyfish bloom in the black sea happened after the fishing fleet turned onto the smallest plankton-feeding fish. I do not know the English name, it is about half the length of an adult sardine and as thick as a pencil. Bulgarians call it tca-tca. Taking it out of the food chain resulted in algal blooms, which in turn provided food for the jelly fish.

The lesson here is that if we want healthy seas, protecting the bottom of the food chain (the plankton feeders) is probably more important than protecting tuna, cod and other luxury fish at the top. If we ignore it, the sad tory of Black Sea will repeat elsewhere again and again.

Having driven the Cod to near extinction... may we have some JAM fish, please?

This is a very primitive life form, and absence of enough of the more advanced ones provides the opportunity for it to occupy more of the ocean than it has for some billions of years.

Shame your journalist couldn't manage to take this story a bit more seriously. The main reason for the rise of the jellyfish is that overfishing is causing the collapse of whole marine ecosystems. The only thing left in these deadzones is jellyfish. With no predators left and no competition for resources jellyfish populations boom out of control.

Hope you like the taste of jellyfish - it's the only seafood you'll be getting in twenty years time.

that someone isn't treating this entirely seriously...

They seem to be eminently qualified - no backbone and no brain tissue either!