12-30-2013, 06:36 PM
Two reasons I went into the physical sciences rather than biology: 1) I couldn't spell or remember any of the terms biologists use for parts of the anatomy, and 2) I couldn't see any way we'd ever understand something that involved the brains of creatures we could never really understand. OK, that's three!
About three years ago Pam and I went on a whale watch cruise from Maui. It was one of those run by a research group (just too lazy to look it up now) and the person giving the commentary was a whale researcher. This was during whale season here. Towards the end she got a small kid on the cruise to drop a microphone into the water and the sounds were relayed to us all. It was one of those moments in life for me when I also acted like a little kid; wide-eyed and absolutely captured in the moment. The sounds we heard were incredible, whales singing all over the place and you wouldn't have had a clue that was going on unless you were underwater yourself. Even then the microphone was more sensitive than our ears, it was a cacophony of sounds from the humpbacks. All of that was going on beneath us while most people only ever see or hear the whales when they're at the surface.
What they were talking to each other about will likely always remain a mystery, at least as far as I'm concerned, but just to eavesdrop for a few minutes was very special.
About three years ago Pam and I went on a whale watch cruise from Maui. It was one of those run by a research group (just too lazy to look it up now) and the person giving the commentary was a whale researcher. This was during whale season here. Towards the end she got a small kid on the cruise to drop a microphone into the water and the sounds were relayed to us all. It was one of those moments in life for me when I also acted like a little kid; wide-eyed and absolutely captured in the moment. The sounds we heard were incredible, whales singing all over the place and you wouldn't have had a clue that was going on unless you were underwater yourself. Even then the microphone was more sensitive than our ears, it was a cacophony of sounds from the humpbacks. All of that was going on beneath us while most people only ever see or hear the whales when they're at the surface.
What they were talking to each other about will likely always remain a mystery, at least as far as I'm concerned, but just to eavesdrop for a few minutes was very special.