This summer, it’s possible that we’ll be able to communicate directly with dolphins through a new device called the Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry, or CHAT, interface.
CHAT is an iPhone-sized device with two hydrophones attached and a unique one-handed keyboard called a twiddler, which, when combined, is designed to be worn around a diver’s neck while swimming with wild dolphins.
Inside this box is a processor that contains a complex algorithm or pattern detector that might be able to learn to identify the fundamental units of dolphin acoustic communication.
This could enable humans to decode dolphin-speak and then reply.
Subtle variations in sperm whale calls suggest that individuals announce themselves with discrete personal identifiers. To put it another way, they might have names.
It’s long been known that sperm whales use click sequences, or codas, to communicate across miles of deep ocean. Scientists have now studied a particular 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 whales studied seems to have its own personal 5R riff and the differences were significant.
Dominic Ehrler, 65, a retired investor, befriended a goose that began following him around Echo Park ten months ago and she now meets him every day at 8 a.m.
He said: “When she first started following me around like a dog I got goose bumps,” Ehrler said. “David Foster, one of the parks people here, finally introduced me to her. He said, ‘You know you’re being stalked! Her name is Maria.’”
Maria greets Ehrler when he rides his bright red motor scooter down the hill from his Figueroa Terrace condo and then she leads him around the lake as Ehrler pulls out a bag of tortillas retrieved from a store trash bin and feeds the park’s other geese.
Ehrler said Maria is very protective and will peck and bite at strangers who come too close to him. He said their daily encounters end with him riding off on his scooter and her following closely in the air until he circles back to the park and delays her with a fence.
Ehrler said he will follow Maria if the city follows through on plans to relocate her and the park’s other geese while Echo Park is renovated.
“They’re supposed to collect the birds and truck them to another lake. I plan to follow her there, because when you have a friend like this you don’t want to lose her,” he said.
It's Interesting 