The Venus flower basket, for example, a kind of deep-sea sponge, has spiny skeletal outgrowths that are remarkably similar, both in appearance and optical properties, to commercial optical fibres, notes Joanna Aizenberg, a researcher at Lucent Technology's Bell Laboratories in New Jersey.

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It involves learning where sponges grow, picking the right one, prying an intact sponge from the sea bottom, and using it on their noses to root around the right areas to find fish concealed in the sand.

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The plastic also acts as a chemical sponge absorbing some of the worst pollutants in the sea and increasing its toxicity when swallowed.

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