the mysteries of the hagfish

A microscope image of a hagfish’s coiled slime thread (Courtesy of Douglas Fudge)

It's weird, it's mysterious and for all I know it is blatantly fake news, but a friend passed along this article about the hagfish ... and, well, it's weird/imaginative enough to draw my attention from top to bottom.

Hagfish produce slime the way humans produce opinions—readily, swiftly, defensively, and prodigiously. They slime when attacked or simply when stressed. On July 14, 2017, a truck full of hagfish overturned on an Oregon highway. The animals were destined for South Korea, where they are eaten as a delicacy, but instead, they were strewn across a stretch of Highway 101, covering the road (and at least one unfortunate car) in slime.
Typically, a hagfish will release less than a teaspoon of gunk from the 100 or so slime glands that line its flanks. And in less than half a second, that little amount will expand by 10,000 times—enough to fill a sizable bucket. Reach in, and every move of your hand will drag the water with it. “It doesn’t feel like much at first, as if a spider has built a web underwater,” says Douglas Fudge of Chapman University. But try to lift your hand out, and it’s as if the bucket’s contents are now attached to you.

It all seems to pose the question, "What do you actually know when you know it?"