And Finally...

1115 readers

1017 users here now

A place for odd or quirky world news stories.

Elsewhere in the Fediverse:

Rules:

Be excellent to each other
The Internet will resurface old "And finally..." material. Just mark it [VINTAGE]

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Scientists claim to have successfully ‘conversed’ with a whale (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

37 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Scientists at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) in the US claim to have conversed with a humpback whale in Alaska as a proxy for communicating with aliens.

...

They found that while most of the whales ignored the recorded calls, one of them – a female named Twain – circled the scientists’ boat, mimicking the noises for about 20 minutes.

Researchers are not entirely sure what the recorded call meant, but suspect it is a kind of “contact call” that whales use to call each other.

“It might have just been us saying hello, and her responding hello, and us saying hello again,” Dr Walker explained.

“We believe this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and humpback whales in the humpback ‘language,’” study lead author Brenda McCowan said in a statement.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yep! They can generate sound pressure up to 233 dB. That would blow out your eardrums and vibrate your insides to mush.

For reference, a jet taking off is around 130 dB at around 300 meters away. 233 dB is literally over 10 million times louder.