"eeeeiiiit eeeeiiit cackle cackle eeeeit eeeeeeit!"
Posted on 04/10/2009 1:17:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Dolphins' secret underwater language has intrigued generations of scientists, but no one has come close to cracking the code to understanding their mysterious sounds - until now.
A British acoustics engineer claims he may be close to deciphering the clicks and whistles that make up "dolphin speak".
In a lab in his Cumbrian cottage, John Stuart Reid showed me his Cymascope, a new invention which transforms sounds into pictures.
He explained the principle behind it using sand, a brass plate and a violin bow.
"You see what happens when we bring the bow down the side of the plate," he said.
"It's almost like magic because we can see now the imprint the sound has made on the surface of the plate, through the sand.
"It's literally the pattern of sound. That's the shape the sound would be if we could see it.
"That's exactly the principle of the Cymascope. Instead of using a brass plate, we're using the surface of water."
John Stewart Reid and wife Annaliese John has been working with Florida-based cetacean researcher Jack Kassewitz, who collects the dolphin and whale sounds in the field and sends them back to the UK. He then showed me the Cymascope in action, using a pre-recorded whale sound, and explained how the process works.
"Inside the business end of the Cymascope there is a very small area of water. A light ring illuminates the water and then a video camera points down onto the water's surface," he said.
"So what we're going to do is excite the water by introducing the whale song, then look what happens on the TV monitor when we play that lovely song. What you see is the image of the sound.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
I don’t see anything really new in this device, but he’s got a cute wife researching with him, so points for the pic.
The entire evidence that dolphins are so intelligent is that their cerebrums have a very high surface area. There is a correlation between cerebral surface area and intelligence. So far, the only animal found capable of abstract language (i.e., the use of adjectives or hyptheticals) is not a dolphin or an ape, but a parrot. The animal with the most evolved reasoning skills is a dog.
Yes, but my point is that, somehow, Lassie’s barking was translated by people into, “Timmy’s in the well.” Now, my point is when people translate “dolphin speak”, it’s also translated into, “Timmy’s in the well.” :)
The dolphins are saying “what’s for dinner? Fish again!”
"Hey! Hey! What was that noise? Hey! Hey! What...."
And so on. They're animals, for Pete's sake. Are these idiots expecting to debate philosophy with them?
GMTA. :-)
South Park also had something similar happen with killer whales during one episode. At the end, we see a dead killer whale on the moon.
"eeeeiiiit eeeeiiit cackle cackle eeeeit eeeeeeit!"
...unfortunately, the dolphins can’t understand anything coming out of the machine...
These researchers are so silly. Look the noise makes a pattern on the water!
Reminds me of The Voyage Home where Spock points out (paraphrasing) that you can’t speak “whale” by just stringing a bunch of whale song sounds together, it won’t have any meaning.
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