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whales

And So It Begins

Nevermind, Hollywood, Just Keep Making Sequels: Movie About Olympic Swimmer Raised By Whales is Greenlit

by Susana Polo | 4:14 pm, August 28th, 2012

It’s pretty easy to make fun of Hollywood for making nothing but sequels, adaptations, and remakes lately. After all, it’s pretty clear that that’s where the big money is being spent. Just look at the movies that made it into our End-of-Summer Round Up: franchise movies like The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus and Men in Black III, reboots like The Amazing Spider-Man and Total Recall, and a slew of movies based on licensed products or previously told stories like Battleship, Snow White and the Huntsman and Dark Shadows. The only fully original film there is Brave.

But if this is what we get when Hollywood reaches around for an original idea… how about we just keep making those Spider-Man reboots, huh?

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I'm In A Glass Case of Emotion

Meet The Whale Who is Forever Alone

by Alanna Bennett | 4:15 pm, July 23rd, 2012

It’s a pretty well-known fact that humpback whales communicate with each other through sound. Their sounds are obviously not articulated in the same way as human words, but the species emit sounds–or songs–as a means of communicating to each other in the water. That is, all except for the 52 Hertz whale, who, while also singing, is singing at such a high frequency that none of the other whales in the ocean can hear it. Because of this, it’s spent its entire life in solitude.

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The Future Is Now!

Could Whales and Dolphins Get Legal Rights Within Our Lifetimes?

by Susana Polo | 4:17 pm, July 19th, 2012

Such is the question posed (and that will eventually by answered) by Steven M. Wise. In the past few decades, biologists have whittled away at what were once considered to be exclusively human traits. The research of Jane Goodall, for example, that showed that Chimpanzees are capable of using and modifying objects in their surroundings as tools, was incredibly controversial in its day. Decades later, we have scientists openly considering the idea of reclassifying dolphins as “non-human persons” rather than animals. (Or, to my nerdy mind, reclassifying them as ramen instead of varelse.)

Whether or not this should happen or will happen is not really something I’m prepared to make definitive statements about. But I do find it fascinating that there’s enough science out there on the subject that we’ve come to the point where anyone is seriously considering a campaign to give cetaceans legal rights as persons instead of objects.

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what is this I don't even

There is Nothing on the Internet, Please Accept This Whale Sneezing a Rainbow

by Susana Polo | 5:48 pm, June 21st, 2012

As these hapless whale watchers were about to find out, sneezing rainbows was actually the first symptom of a heretofore unknown whale-to-human transmissible virus. They were known as Patients Zero through Seven.

this exists

Short Film Illustrates What Happens to Whale Carcasses After Death [Video]

by Jamie Frevele | 1:14 pm, October 14th, 2011

This video by Sharon Shattuck and Flora Lichtman of Sweet Fern Productions, which was done for Radiolabin collaboration with Lynn Levy, depicts what happens when a whale dies in the ocean. But it isn’t gross. It’s actually, strangely enough, kind of beautiful and touching because it’s done with colorful puppets accompanied by string music. In a world we don’t generally get to see, a whale’s remains will sink to the bottom of the ocean floor upon the end of its life. For the next 50 to 75 years, that whale will support a whole new ecosystem. It pretty much donates a second life — a whale’s life span is also 50 to 75 years — to creating more life.

(via Boing Boing)

it's time to play the music

Whales Pass Songs to Other Whale Populations, Probably Get Earworms

by Jamie Frevele | 12:55 pm, April 16th, 2011

New research from the University of Queensland in Australia has found that when a male humpback whale begins mating season by singing, that particular song might be an original or it might be something that’s been stuck in his head for a while. A lot of these whale songs have been spread across a 4,000-mile radius and become a whale community’s “Top 40 hits.” Which might lead everyone to wonder: Are there famous whale pop stars? Is there a whale version of American Idol? What does the whale equivalent of Justin Bieber sound like?

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so long and thanks for all the fish

Scientists Think That Sperm Whales Might Have Names

by Susana Polo | 10:23 am, March 14th, 2011

Turns out, Sperm Whales may have their own names for themselves, and not the ones that are chosen for them by human overlords like Monstro, Moby, or Pearl.

Whale biologists (who, as we all know, calls ‘em like they sees ‘em)

analyzed a coda made by sperm whales around the world. Called 5R, it’s composed of five consecutive clicks, and superficially appears to be identical in each whale. Analyzed closely, however, variations in click timing emerge. Each of the researchers’ whales had its own personal 5R riff.

The codas are made at the beginning of vocalizations, “like old-time telegraph operators clicking out a call sign.” Says researcher Luke Rendell, “There is no doubt in my mind that the animals can tell the difference between the timing of individuals.”

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