Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: what's your opinion on dolphins? Let's just get get it out.
Speaker 1: What is your straightforward view on dolphins as a human female,
Speaker 1: As a human female, it makes total sense. Why, um,
Speaker 1: there are vans that have the depiction of dolphins on
Speaker 1: the sides of them. Now, when you put it like that,
Speaker 1: dolphin vans, dolphins, right, T shirts, it all makes sense.
Speaker 1: The tattoos the symbol of love and unity. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: kind of like if you see them depicted in art
Speaker 1: and tattoos and van murals, um and uh and gatty
Speaker 1: t shirts, like they're this supernatural sea being that rises
Speaker 1: up from the water to the stove, gifts on on
Speaker 1: on on fishermen that happened to catch them in their
Speaker 1: nets or something. It's yeah, it's really kind of strange.
Speaker 1: I think it's clear to say that we have an
Speaker 1: obsession with them as humans or you know, as of
Speaker 1: late yeah, right, And and this could be because of Flipper,
Speaker 1: which is what like nineteen sixties subtly that that show,
Speaker 1: which sort of introduced everybody to this incredible creature. And
Speaker 1: I think most people before that thought, oh, dolphins just
Speaker 1: one of those you know, fish swimming around. It's not
Speaker 1: that exciting, some sort of freaky sea mammal, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did not a lot of thought put into it. And
Speaker 1: of course, part of part of this has to do
Speaker 1: with the whole flipper craze also has its roots with
Speaker 1: John C. Lily, the out there um fringy. Well, at
Speaker 1: his best, he was kind of a fringe scientist and
Speaker 1: then he just completely jumped over the fringe and took
Speaker 1: off willy nilly into the into the bushes of of
Speaker 1: non science. Yeah. And for a while though he was
Speaker 1: pretty well funded um and was doing some very freaky experiments,
Speaker 1: including flooding a house for two weeks and uh having
Speaker 1: one of his research assistance female hole up with a dolphin.
Speaker 1: And we we we've talked about it before. It's in fact,
Speaker 1: we talked about it in the weirdo rock Star Lives
Speaker 1: of Scientists, So there's much more of that there. But
Speaker 1: but it was a period where suddenly, you know, for
Speaker 1: all his faults, he was like, hey, dolphins are pretty
Speaker 1: incredible creatures. And they have some really incredible characteristics and
Speaker 1: mental Uh, they have an amazing mental capacity. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: their mammals like us, which not you know, it's probably
Speaker 1: not apparent to everybody at first, but um, they presided
Speaker 1: me they're young for the first eight months of life.
Speaker 1: Um and and I think that we can't help but
Speaker 1: find similarities between ourselves and dolphins, particularly when we think
Speaker 1: about their language capabilities. And again this is sort of
Speaker 1: the whole like Flipper thing John C. Lily thing. These
Speaker 1: are the people or the ways that showed us that
Speaker 1: that dolphins can really talk to us in a certain way.
Speaker 1: And you think about it this way, this is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: This is pointed out in the movie The Cove. Dolphins
Speaker 1: can understand sign language, which okay, yeah, great, so can chimpanzees.
Speaker 1: But think about this. Dolphins do not have hands fingers.
Speaker 1: It's true, they don't. They don't even have the reference material,
Speaker 1: which is so interesting to think that they would be
Speaker 1: able to take all this sign language. Um and again,
Speaker 1: which we already know we created based on our finger system, right,
Speaker 1: and we've got the number system based on our finger system.
Speaker 1: A lot of language is based on our number system.
Speaker 1: But these guys know. Wow, so they can't type either.
Speaker 1: Like if I were to call them out on the
Speaker 1: blogs and like talk a lot of snack dolphins are
Speaker 1: gonna type, what are they gonna do? They're just gonna go.
Speaker 1: They've got that brain computer interface though, so they should
Speaker 1: be blogging soon. Oh, the the brain computer interface. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get to um. Yeah they are, they are. Well.
Speaker 1: We should also mention the whole cute factor really quick,
Speaker 1: because even though I'm not convinced that they are cute
Speaker 1: per se, they do have that sort of freaky smile. Look,
Speaker 1: they kind of look like they're smiling. They have a
Speaker 1: permo smile. Yeah, And I tried to get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of business here with you about this, Like what
Speaker 1: it was that freaked you out about? It was the
Speaker 1: Uncanny Valley effect. Maybe just because it's a Permo smile.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's cute. How can you not know it's
Speaker 1: But it's like it is kind of a permo smile.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the joker or something. Or it's
Speaker 1: also it's like I've had this conversation with my wife
Speaker 1: before about our cat where I would be like, what
Speaker 1: would it be like if the cat could smile? Or laugh,
Speaker 1: and we both agree that would be really creepy. So
Speaker 1: the idea of an animal smiling or even appearing like
Speaker 1: we kind of flow with it. With dogs, I guess,
Speaker 1: not that dogs actually smile, but they kind of have,
Speaker 1: you know, when they're panting, they open their mouth and
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, he looks happy. They got the ears
Speaker 1: that yet it works more with them, But but with
Speaker 1: the dolphin, I'm just kind of like, what's they smiling about?
Speaker 1: What's it's? You know, what is this idea of fun
Speaker 1: or humor? It probably doesn't line up with my idea
Speaker 1: of fun or humor. Well, regardless of still on the
Speaker 1: pantheon of cuteness next to unicorns, kittens, and horses. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it's uh, if we turn back the clock on
Speaker 1: the dolphin, if we start looking at where they came from,
Speaker 1: they of course did not come from another planet. Uh.
Speaker 1: There there, let's go ahead and dismiss that right out.
Speaker 1: They are not um, you know, here to study us
Speaker 1: um and report back to the mothership. But they did
Speaker 1: evolve from um other forms of life, as everything else has.
Speaker 1: And if you do you turn back the clock current,
Speaker 1: according to current studies, you end up with a very
Speaker 1: strange looking creature that I will I'll either put a
Speaker 1: picture of this on the accompanying blog post for this
Speaker 1: podcast or for this episode, or I will um, I'll
Speaker 1: embed it or something just so you can see it.
Speaker 1: Because the the earlier form of life that modern dolphins
Speaker 1: evolved from looks kind of like a uh, how do
Speaker 1: it describe the Yes, the opposite A cute kind of
Speaker 1: like a hyena hippo, Like a hyena hip and a
Speaker 1: hippo had a baby, and that baby like had some
Speaker 1: plastic surgery done when it grew up. It's a look
Speaker 1: more like an alligator. Yeah, I can I see that.
Speaker 1: There's like the head has the features of the hippo
Speaker 1: sort of around the eyes and in the cheekbones if
Speaker 1: you could say that they don't know that they have
Speaker 1: cheek bones. Um, but yeah, the rest of the body
Speaker 1: sort of looks like an alligator. Yeah. If they had
Speaker 1: had like chicken coops forty eight million years ago, this
Speaker 1: thing looks like it would just eat chickens NonStop. Like
Speaker 1: there's something kind of fox like about it. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's surprising when you think about the dolphin today, which
Speaker 1: is sleek and I won't say cuddly, because they're not cuddly,
Speaker 1: but they're playful. And again they've got the permo smile.
Speaker 1: This is the opposite of that. Yeah, this is kind
Speaker 1: of have the more of a sort of a perma
Speaker 1: snarl going on. And uh so this creature again forty
Speaker 1: eight million years ago, it would have been a semi
Speaker 1: aquatic herbivore um with the name the end or something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, endoyas let's call it called that. And
Speaker 1: it was actually a related to the hippo. I mean,
Speaker 1: the hippo is a is a fairly close evolutionary relative
Speaker 1: to all cessations. Yeah, and uh, I mean this is
Speaker 1: this is the group of of the hoof first, I
Speaker 1: guess you could say, right, the hoof ones and um.
Speaker 1: As a result of this information, um, and this is
Speaker 1: the best gas right too. We don't have Yeah, we
Speaker 1: all just based on theory. Yeah, but some people have said, oh,
Speaker 1: they've evolved from dogs. This is not true. You'll see
Speaker 1: that sometimes, um, you know obviously on the internet out there.
Speaker 1: But because you know of their connection with rhinos um
Speaker 1: and and you know obviously like an alligators as well,
Speaker 1: this you know, you see some similarities in terms of
Speaker 1: starting out as being a shallow waters forager. This is
Speaker 1: this is what the dolphin was doing, hanging out, you know,
Speaker 1: beach cheer in the water. And then you know, throughout
Speaker 1: the years became a bit of a more sleeker version
Speaker 1: of this self, right as as natural selection kicked then
Speaker 1: and uh what in the the more aquatic variations were
Speaker 1: the ones that survived. Yeah, but we should probably talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more too about the features of dolphins.
Speaker 1: They bill anticetations right along with porpoises and whales, and um,
Speaker 1: these guys can measure as long as thirteen feet in
Speaker 1: weigh one thousand pounds, so they can get up there. Um,
Speaker 1: they come superficially resemble fishes we've talked about. They are
Speaker 1: mammals um, and they travel and pods of up to
Speaker 1: a dozen dolphins, which is interesting because this is the
Speaker 1: sort of community that they're in. It's not just that
Speaker 1: they're hanging out that this is usually their families that
Speaker 1: they're traveling along with. And we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that later and how it's sort of um
Speaker 1: makes us better understand them as being social creatures like us.
Speaker 1: And uh, they have pretty big brains too. Yeah, based
Speaker 1: on m R. I scans, we can you know, we've
Speaker 1: really been able to get in there and go elbow
Speaker 1: deep into these fantastic delphin dolphin brains and uh, they're
Speaker 1: they're big relative to their body size, and they have
Speaker 1: a highly convoluted neo cortex, which is a structure that
Speaker 1: also allows for self awareness, processing of complex emotions, and
Speaker 1: they we we tend to see their U. The evolution
Speaker 1: of the dolphin brain um as its occurring in various
Speaker 1: growth spurts throughout history, Like the first big jump would
Speaker 1: have happened about thirty nine million years ago, and this
Speaker 1: is when you had primitive dolphins that have you know,
Speaker 1: they've they've they've diverged, they've shot off, they're they're living
Speaker 1: it up in the water. And uh, this is around
Speaker 1: the time that echolocation became really big. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: think of bats, except it's you know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a little more complex than that. But they're using sound
Speaker 1: to see things, using sound to hunt. And we've observed
Speaker 1: some remarkable um examples of this, of of them using
Speaker 1: it to to track prey and actually sort of heard
Speaker 1: them in UM. It's U really incredible. It's very sophisticated.
Speaker 1: So now or basically Yeah, there's actually one study that
Speaker 1: they had a couple of dolphins and um, it was
Speaker 1: predicated basically on them being able to get some fish.
Speaker 1: So each of them had to hit a letter on
Speaker 1: the right or left and they had to mimic each
Speaker 1: other and then they'd get the fish. They'd be rewarded
Speaker 1: with that. Well, they did that over and over again,
Speaker 1: and then they did it in different rooms where they
Speaker 1: couldn't see each other, and finally they did it to
Speaker 1: the point where they could only hear each other. And again,
Speaker 1: if the other dolphin does not hit the correct button,
Speaker 1: then they're not going to get the fish. And so
Speaker 1: what they observed is that even in another room that
Speaker 1: they would hear the dolphins say something to the other dolphin,
Speaker 1: which then was construted as hey hit the left lever, buddy,
Speaker 1: or something along this line, so we can get this fish.
Speaker 1: And in fact, they would do this over and over again.
Speaker 1: And it just shows you that the power of echo
Speaker 1: location is for them, um, so incredible and used in
Speaker 1: ways that you know, they could particularly just be sort
Speaker 1: of blind and be able to see using this sonar
Speaker 1: and um, you also draw dragged in the social uh
Speaker 1: connotation there because that was another evolutionary spurt in brain
Speaker 1: size that occurred they think about fifteen million years ago
Speaker 1: as they developed a more social lifestyle and uh and
Speaker 1: social interactions that takes a fair amount of brain power.
Speaker 1: So the brain again began to grow inside become became
Speaker 1: more complex as they had to us as the dolphins
Speaker 1: that were better capable of navigating uh, their social structure
Speaker 1: were the ones to survive and become the species. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we know in humans too that we develop our neo
Speaker 1: cortex in part as a way to to deal with
Speaker 1: our social situations, including parenting. And again there's another parallel
Speaker 1: because you do see dolphins staying with your young for
Speaker 1: two three years raising them, and again there's a whole
Speaker 1: feeding thing for eight months at the very big and
Speaker 1: then traveling as a family. Yeah, you'll typically see the
Speaker 1: vacation spots. Um. They're always kind of loud though, because
Speaker 1: they're they're taking photos and yeah, yeah, I know, the
Speaker 1: loud shirts. What are you gonna do? Um? But you know,
Speaker 1: so that's that's a I think, just a little glimpse
Speaker 1: of their intelligence. Um. And again there their brain size
Speaker 1: that second only to humans, so they trump everybody else
Speaker 1: in terms of brain size umnix for us. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: we don't use the echolocation to find things. So true true,
Speaker 1: and we should say to that a lot of their
Speaker 1: brain is uh, that brain space is committed for echolocation, right,
Speaker 1: that's why one of the reasons why it's so large. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of these intruations we get into and looking
Speaker 1: at any species though where in analyzing an animals intelligence,
Speaker 1: you all, we always inevitably fall back on the human model.
Speaker 1: So just because because one animal, the human is capable
Speaker 1: of reading Moby dick and uh and the doll and isn't,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that the dolphin is stupid. It's just a
Speaker 1: different type of intelligence, right, I mean and and and
Speaker 1: actually Mobi dick, right, I mean one could be reading it,
Speaker 1: the other could be just you know, terrorizing ships, right.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's interesting that you bring up what
Speaker 1: is intelligence because we've talked about it before. We've talked
Speaker 1: about it is pattern recognition and the ability to try
Speaker 1: to predict the future and pre plan And you see
Speaker 1: this in dolphins again and again. We've talked about this
Speaker 1: before about dolphins using sponges on the tips of their
Speaker 1: noses to forage on the ocean floor. And the reason
Speaker 1: they do that is so that in case there's some
Speaker 1: sort of creature there, it doesn't like snap out at
Speaker 1: them and uh you know, scar them or take a
Speaker 1: chunk of skin off, and it allows them to kind
Speaker 1: of see where the creatures are without getting hurt. And
Speaker 1: obviously this takes pre planning. Yeah, I mean, it's too
Speaker 1: of you. So it's a it's a fairly advanced technique. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And there's another and good example I really like this
Speaker 1: is from dolphin researcher Peter Rand Folkins. Uh. He tells
Speaker 1: the story of out how Marine World Africa, USA. They
Speaker 1: had trained the dolphins to retrieve trash and bring it
Speaker 1: to the trainer and then they get a reward fish
Speaker 1: of course. And um, what they saw is that the
Speaker 1: dolphins would clean up the area spick and span, and
Speaker 1: yet pieces of trash they would still find and bring
Speaker 1: up to the trainer and get their fish. And so
Speaker 1: they were saying, I have this as possible. This area
Speaker 1: is completely clean. And what they had found is that
Speaker 1: one dolphin had begun to put a stash of um
Speaker 1: trash into this little trash bag that was on the
Speaker 1: side that and how incredible was that that the dolphin
Speaker 1: actually planned for that saw the trash bag and was like, Um,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be my storehouse. That's going to make sure
Speaker 1: that I am always knee deep in fish. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: this gets us into the area of more into the
Speaker 1: area of what can we have make dolphins do, which
Speaker 1: after this brief break, we're going to discuss in detail.
Speaker 1: This presentation is brought to you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: All right, so we're back and let's talk about what
Speaker 1: dolphins can do for us because as humans, you know,
Speaker 1: recognizing an animal and animals intelligence is great, but can
Speaker 1: we use it to fight wars or to do work
Speaker 1: that we don't want to do? I mean, sadly, a
Speaker 1: lot of it comes down to that, or or even
Speaker 1: what can it do to entertain me? Yeah? I know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just thinking that one respect. They're really lucky
Speaker 1: that they are no longer really dwelling animals and they're
Speaker 1: in the water, because we probably would have them on
Speaker 1: trash detail a lot of the highways. I can picture
Speaker 1: them in their little orange jumpsuits. Um well, one of
Speaker 1: the the the first efforts to make or well convinced
Speaker 1: I don't know. It depends how you look at it.
Speaker 1: Dolphins to do thanks for us UM back in Sea
Speaker 1: Lab two, which we discussed in our Life Aquatic podcast.
Speaker 1: This was UM at Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and this was an underwater laboratory environment. Uh, most of
Speaker 1: the tests they were doing that we're just figuring out, Hey,
Speaker 1: can people work, um, say, at a depth of two
Speaker 1: feet for thirty straight days? Can they you know, can
Speaker 1: they can they carry out experiments? Are they gonna go
Speaker 1: crazy or become sick? Yeah? It was human centric, Yeah,
Speaker 1: very very human centric. They also experiment with the trained
Speaker 1: por porpoise named Toufee to do courier work between the
Speaker 1: habitat um on the ocean floor and the surface, and
Speaker 1: instead of using a hose to provide the humans with
Speaker 1: the all the supplies from the surface, the Navy sometimes
Speaker 1: used toughie to bring things down, things like male tools
Speaker 1: and even bottles of soda. So I'm not saying it
Speaker 1: wasn't kind of demeaning to the dolphin, but um, but
Speaker 1: it was based in pure research saying it was sort
Speaker 1: of beyond what they should have been doing, or well,
Speaker 1: I mean they should have been doing like watercolors. Well,
Speaker 1: well it gets weirder when you when you start looking
Speaker 1: at with the the name because in you know, the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy was more into like, all right, well they can
Speaker 1: fetch a soda, but can they do things we actually
Speaker 1: need them to do. Because we can get soda, we
Speaker 1: can we can provide soda for our submarine. Right, we
Speaker 1: can do that. But they do give them to find
Speaker 1: explosive minds, right, yeah, so that was a big deal
Speaker 1: in the sixties. Um mind sweeping. Yeah. They weren't disarming mines.
Speaker 1: They weren't going down like you know, bread busting it
Speaker 1: open and finding blue wires and red wires or anything
Speaker 1: like that because again no hands. But they did teach
Speaker 1: them how to how to find the mines and then
Speaker 1: they would reward them with with a you know, a
Speaker 1: nice fish treat. Have you ever seen a clue here?
Speaker 1: Fish really big In the dolphin world, Yeah, yeah. Another example,
Speaker 1: and this is again the US Navy is uh and
Speaker 1: this is from Slate dot Com and The Tail and
Speaker 1: the Dolphin by Daniel Anger. Um it is quote. Dolphins
Speaker 1: and sea lions are also trained to use bite plate
Speaker 1: systems to mark or capture water borne intruders. When they
Speaker 1: spot an enemy diver underwater, they can poke them with
Speaker 1: a bite plate to release a strobe light beacon, presumably
Speaker 1: so someone can find that person. And they might also
Speaker 1: carry c shaped clamps that snaps shut on a diver's leg.
Speaker 1: Once a dolphin cuffs the diver, it turns back to
Speaker 1: its hamler with a tether line. Oh my goodness, can
Speaker 1: you imagine getting cuffed by a dolphin? Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: Miami Vice there. I mean, it's uh, it's amazing, it is.
Speaker 1: I mean about the only thing more amazing is if
Speaker 1: the tether were actually attached to the dolphin, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, and they could just bring them in and
Speaker 1: they had a little dolphin car and yeah, but I
Speaker 1: like the idea that because you don't want the dolphin
Speaker 1: then to go rogue and like just drag the person
Speaker 1: out to see you want him to hand him over
Speaker 1: to the authorities. Now, but human authority. It's true, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. You know who knows what they're capable? Evenue.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of The Onion, which has a
Speaker 1: couple of very funny dolphin headlines, but one of them
Speaker 1: is dolphins develop opposable thumbs and the whole article, which
Speaker 1: is kind of funny, but actually the article is hilarious.
Speaker 1: It talks about how now that they have a postable thombs,
Speaker 1: humans are toast. Yeah, they're gonna take us over. They're
Speaker 1: like I said, if they were to have hands, it's
Speaker 1: like who knows exactly what they want? Um, because we
Speaker 1: can't talk to them and talk to him. Yes, this
Speaker 1: is this is really interesting. Um. So if you go
Speaker 1: back to the nineties, you had this guy named Lewis
Speaker 1: Herman and he worked at the uh Kualo Basin Marine
Speaker 1: Mammal Laboratory in Honolulu, and uh he discovered the bottom
Speaker 1: of those dolphins can keep track of over a hundred
Speaker 1: different words, and they can. They can they can roll
Speaker 1: with different commands that use these words in different forms
Speaker 1: like the The example that I ran across was like fristance.
Speaker 1: You should be able to say, hey, can you bring
Speaker 1: that surfboard to me? And they would understand that, and
Speaker 1: then they would equally understand hey can you bring me
Speaker 1: to that surfboard? Which the difference is obvious to us,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about I mean, the English isn't a
Speaker 1: second language, like language is the second language for the dolphin.
Speaker 1: You know, I think if you're trying to learn German
Speaker 1: and how difficult that is because the placement affords and
Speaker 1: I'm doing it as an as a dolphin, right yea,
Speaker 1: with several languages, because your trainer could be German, right yeah,
Speaker 1: and really fascinating. Um is this more recent approach and
Speaker 1: one of one of them. This is mainly a dolphin
Speaker 1: researcher by the name of Denise Herzing, and she's collaborating
Speaker 1: with Thad Starner, who's an artificial intelligence researcher at the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Zone, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the projects called
Speaker 1: Cessation Hearing and Telemetry or CHAT. I think maybe they
Speaker 1: can chat first. I don't know, I'm just stand but basically,
Speaker 1: the the the ideas really neat here. It's all right,
Speaker 1: so dolphins kind of had they have their own language.
Speaker 1: And I'm doing quote marks with my fingers because it's
Speaker 1: this is a whole different discussion about what constitutes a
Speaker 1: language and all. But they have they can clearly um
Speaker 1: communicate via sound. They use sound in very clever ways
Speaker 1: and often in way that we can't even fully understands,
Speaker 1: Like they they can produce sounds that frequencies up to
Speaker 1: two kiloherts, around ten times as high as the highest
Speaker 1: pitch that a human can hear, and in so many
Speaker 1: different directions to you, right, which makes it again hard
Speaker 1: to sort of tag what that vocalization might mean because
Speaker 1: you don't really know as humans, we don't really know
Speaker 1: what it's being directed to. Yeah, they occupy just a
Speaker 1: different sonic landscape than we do as a species. So
Speaker 1: while the past effort was let's teach them some human language,
Speaker 1: you know, and then that met met with very limited success,
Speaker 1: and we haven't made a lot of strides towards understanding
Speaker 1: their language because again, a lot of us out of
Speaker 1: our hearing. So this effort is is kind of about
Speaker 1: developing a new language. Like meeting them halfway, right, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, they're they're recording interpreting in the
Speaker 1: responding to the dolphin sounds. This is um. This is
Speaker 1: from an article and new scientists talk with the dolphin
Speaker 1: via underwater translation machine. UM and starting his students are
Speaker 1: built a prototype device featuring a smartphone sized computer and
Speaker 1: to hydrophone capable of detecting the full range of dolphins sounds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then also you know, it's about detecting the patterns
Speaker 1: within their sound cataloging detecting um IT says a diver
Speaker 1: will carry the computer in a waterproofed case worn across
Speaker 1: the chest, and LEDs embedded around the diver's mask will
Speaker 1: light up to show where a sound picked up by
Speaker 1: the hydrophones originated from. The diver will also have a
Speaker 1: handheld device, the x as a combination of mouse and
Speaker 1: keyboard for selecting what kind of sound to make in response.
Speaker 1: So these are sort of the first steps in trying
Speaker 1: to uh they're calling it co create the language, which
Speaker 1: I think is funny because it'llaboration right because they've had
Speaker 1: a lot of meetings with the dolphins and and they're
Speaker 1: into it. Um So, Herzing and Starner will actually start
Speaker 1: testing this system on wild Atlantic spotted dolphins in the
Speaker 1: middle of this year, and at first, divers will play
Speaker 1: back one of the eight words coined by the team
Speaker 1: to mean like seaweed or bow wave ride for example.
Speaker 1: Um in the software will then listen to see if
Speaker 1: the dolphins mimic them. I don't know, we'll see I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm curious, like I instantly am thinking though of
Speaker 1: like this outrageous scenario where we make first contact with
Speaker 1: the dolphins. Yeah yeah, Like what would like on one hand,
Speaker 1: are they're going to say, greetings human, we I am
Speaker 1: so glad that you can we can finally communicate as
Speaker 1: a as as brothers, and we wish to convey to
Speaker 1: you this this message of environmental responsibility. Or would it
Speaker 1: be like that's that's my my erudite dolphin voice. Or
Speaker 1: would it be like, yo, man, do you want give
Speaker 1: me that fish? I'll totally go get your mind if
Speaker 1: you give me that fish. Yeah yeah, or like I'll
Speaker 1: totally tell you about gray matter, but yeah, I want
Speaker 1: um a thousand barrels of fish right now? Uh sorry,
Speaker 1: gray matter dark matter matter? Yeah? Either one one mistranslate.
Speaker 1: One mistranslation between dolphin and human language. And then they
Speaker 1: go out and start harvesting brains. That's the problem with
Speaker 1: their newly sprung up as. They're like, they want us
Speaker 1: to get gray matter. Do you mean in the dark matter,
Speaker 1: all that dark matter we store at bottom of the ocean,
Speaker 1: And they're like, no, they's a great matter. Like all right,
Speaker 1: fish the fish, let's start harvesting brains. Let's do it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: next thing you Knew documentary. Um, okay, so they are
Speaker 1: very much like us, right, we've sort of discussed why
Speaker 1: big brains mammals. They like hanging out with your young
Speaker 1: traveling in pods, and they're altruistic, yes, which makes sense
Speaker 1: for us um in evolutionary sense, right, because if we
Speaker 1: do something nice for each other, then we kind of
Speaker 1: help stabilize the species and we promote success as a whole.
Speaker 1: But why in the world would they help humans? I
Speaker 1: want to know why would they help That's the thing,
Speaker 1: because you can understand them, like, you know, looking after
Speaker 1: other dolphins in the pod because the pod needs to survive.
Speaker 1: But you know, why are they helping out, say human
Speaker 1: fishermen um in in South America? Where the where the
Speaker 1: dolphins actually heard the fish in towards the nets? Or
Speaker 1: why are they cool with you know, fetching mine ens
Speaker 1: or or slapping handcuffs on strange divers. I mean, is
Speaker 1: it really that that little fish treat is that important
Speaker 1: to them? I don't know. I mean you have heard
Speaker 1: before of people being rescued by dolphins, right, yeah, or
Speaker 1: of surfers going you know, being about to be attacked
Speaker 1: by a shark, and then you know sort of t
Speaker 1: boned to the side by a dolphin, you know, a
Speaker 1: thwarting the attack. So I don't know. I think I
Speaker 1: think that's probably one of the reasons why they're such
Speaker 1: an enigma to us, because again there's this connection seems
Speaker 1: to happen um with us. But also like the video
Speaker 1: you sent me, which was like, oh, yeah, shootest thing
Speaker 1: I've ever seen of dolphin nuzzling with a kitten on
Speaker 1: a boat. Yes, and I will definitely embed this on
Speaker 1: the accompanying blog post for this for this article. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you see like a cat walking over to the edge
Speaker 1: of the swimming pool, or it's not swimming pool, it's
Speaker 1: a dolphin tank, but walking to the edge of the tank,
Speaker 1: and the dolphin comes up and they're like, like the
Speaker 1: dolphins nuzzling the top of the cat's head the same
Speaker 1: way that you know you need cat owners out there
Speaker 1: likely to do to their own pet cat. It's straight
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's it's very weird the way that the
Speaker 1: dolphin does it because it's it's the cat obviously is
Speaker 1: into it, and it's right on that part of the
Speaker 1: head that the cat loves. Um. So there's that, and
Speaker 1: then um there the other saying, you know, and just
Speaker 1: I feel like we've already sort of be smirched dinosaurs
Speaker 1: and talking about their sex lives, so we might as
Speaker 1: well talk about dolphins. Turns out that these are randy folks. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not like they're trying to keep it private or anything.
Speaker 1: They don't care. They're out there doing it. They have
Speaker 1: sex stuff sex, not necessarily to procreate. And this is
Speaker 1: so weird too. They actually can develop HPV, which is
Speaker 1: human people of a virus. Uh. There was an interview
Speaker 1: with um R Flo from Science Friday, and he was
Speaker 1: talking to a couple of folks about this. Um. It
Speaker 1: was an interview with Dr Hendrik Nolan's the University of Florida.
Speaker 1: And let me just read it real quick. This is
Speaker 1: a transcript of this. Uh, there was, It says from Plateau.
Speaker 1: Another question you were intriguing me a boy talking about
Speaker 1: the sea of viruses that are swimming in the ocean.
Speaker 1: And one of those I was thinking about and I've
Speaker 1: heard about, is this genital papuoma virus. UM. I know
Speaker 1: there's a human papulovirus that might lead to cancer. Is
Speaker 1: there something similar in that sea of viruses that might
Speaker 1: be affecting the dolphins, and doctor Nolan says there is,
Speaker 1: and it probably doesn't come from the c order. It
Speaker 1: may be related to their sexual behavior maybe, which is
Speaker 1: purely hypothesis. But no, dolphins do get genital papul imma
Speaker 1: virus infections, and what is actually unique about them is
Speaker 1: that they're the only other species other than humans that
Speaker 1: we see multiple type of infections at the same time.
Speaker 1: Um so, But the weird thing about is that that
Speaker 1: doesn't actually develop into cervical cancer for dolphins. And that's
Speaker 1: a big question from why that might happen in a
Speaker 1: human and not in dolphins. In yeah, so, I mean
Speaker 1: STD awareness campaigns, I think for dolphins. And well, one thing,
Speaker 1: I've brought this up before and I will probably bring
Speaker 1: it up in every discussion about dolphins for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. But um I the reports of Okay,
Speaker 1: only a few people on this Earth can afford a
Speaker 1: private submarine that allows him to go underwater, Branson, We're
Speaker 1: looking at you and have and and the engage in
Speaker 1: human sex in front of a an underwater plan again,
Speaker 1: Richard Branson. So these people have reported dolphins coming and
Speaker 1: watching this activity through the glass, which again that that's
Speaker 1: just why is this happening? Why, what does the dolphin care?
Speaker 1: What does the dolphin possibly get out of? Is it
Speaker 1: just because there's motion and they're just curious? I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I would tend to decide with that versus
Speaker 1: any kind of perversion on the dolphins. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think about John C. Lily's experiment too with his
Speaker 1: female research assistant who lived in the flooded half for
Speaker 1: two weeks with the dolphin. It began to expose his
Speaker 1: genitals to her and began to rub up against her.
Speaker 1: And I won't go into all the other things that did,
Speaker 1: but uh, clearly like there's there's an interest in interspecies,
Speaker 1: uh you know, going songs. Well, again, they're just rant
Speaker 1: any importness in a storm, right, So I guess that's
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's their attitude. Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: a T shirt that says that, Yeah, well there you go.
Speaker 1: We we managed to end that on again dolphins, sex
Speaker 1: and STDs. And they still have a cheap smile though,
Speaker 1: Yeah they do. And uh, of course we have a
Speaker 1: lot of information on dolphins on the house stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com website. If you just go to the home page.
Speaker 1: There you'll find that the gold, big old search bar.
Speaker 1: Just drop dolphins in there and just back in the
Speaker 1: results that you will receive Heaven. Yeah, so they're more
Speaker 1: information awaits you there. But hey, what awaits me now
Speaker 1: is some listener mail. See what we have here? Ah,
Speaker 1: here's one from Chris. Chris writes in and says, uh,
Speaker 1: and he's responding to our episode about the five finger
Speaker 1: evolutionary discount, about the the five fingers that we have
Speaker 1: and that we share with just about every other animal
Speaker 1: on the planet. And he says, today I was cutting
Speaker 1: wood and I accidentally cut my pinky. When I went inside,
Speaker 1: I put a band aid on it to keep it safe,
Speaker 1: and I proceeded with my day. Before bed, I faithfully
Speaker 1: brush my teeth, and an attempt to keep my band
Speaker 1: aid intact, I tried not to use my pinkie, so
Speaker 1: I stuck it out. Have you ever tried to brush
Speaker 1: your teeth without your pinky? Let me tell you it
Speaker 1: is really hard. When it comes to the turning to
Speaker 1: get every single spot of tooth nice and clean, it
Speaker 1: tends to be difficult. Indeed, we do need five fingers.
Speaker 1: Um Chris from Manitoba. And then Chris adds ps. If
Speaker 1: we didn't have pinkies, then when we drank tea, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to do the whole pinkies up routine.
Speaker 1: See uh see they do come they do come in
Speaker 1: very handy so here here. So that's some some excellent
Speaker 1: research there from Chris uh And indeed you find this too.
Speaker 1: I've found this to be the case. You know, you
Speaker 1: you tend to discount some of your fingers. You're like pinkies.
Speaker 1: I don't know what there for. You know, they're just
Speaker 1: hanging out there on the end. But you you nick
Speaker 1: your finger, you end up having to throw a band
Speaker 1: aid over it, and and it's like totally inconveniences everything
Speaker 1: you're doing throughout the day. Well, you become aware of
Speaker 1: it all the time when you go to open a
Speaker 1: door knob or heats, you know, brushing his teeth and yeah,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you're like, I am more aware
Speaker 1: of my fingers than I've ever been in my entire life,
Speaker 1: and the fact that one of them is throbbing in
Speaker 1: pain right now. And here's another bit of listener mail
Speaker 1: from our listener Tom. And Tom writes in and says, uh, hey,
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your Mind podcast. I can't say enough
Speaker 1: how much you to enjoy your podcast along with the
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff podcast. Indeed another fine listening choice. And uh,
Speaker 1: actually it actually educates me as I drive among corn
Speaker 1: fields on the way to work. Um, I tend to
Speaker 1: listen to the episodes in Big Old Bunches. So I
Speaker 1: am writing after listening to the podcast on music changing
Speaker 1: our minds and changing our minds the hard way, So
Speaker 1: that yeah, these were the one dealing with what happens
Speaker 1: in our brain when we listen to music, and the
Speaker 1: other what happens to our mind or the expression of
Speaker 1: ourself when you say, gets struck by lightning or have
Speaker 1: an iron rod fire up through your prefrontal cortex. Right,
Speaker 1: how does that change the sense of yourself? Right? So
Speaker 1: he says, when hearing that the music can actually alter
Speaker 1: our moves and behavior and and possibly for the positive
Speaker 1: and not the kiss army way my mom warned me
Speaker 1: about my mind, immediately jumped to Bill and Ted's excellent Adventure,
Speaker 1: another fine work. Yes, Uh, the scientific evidence actually makes
Speaker 1: it seem movie plausible that the quote unquote perfect band
Speaker 1: like Wild Stallions could actually bring about world peace. Awesome,
Speaker 1: So that I that's that's interesting. I hadn't really made
Speaker 1: the connection there between Bill and Ted and uh and
Speaker 1: those topics. That's right. And then all everybody's neurons just
Speaker 1: firing at the same time to the wild styling and
Speaker 1: you know, feeling this unity and when this saving the
Speaker 1: wall there you go. Well, hey, if you have any
Speaker 1: strange movie connections to make, you know, I'm always game
Speaker 1: for those, and you can share them with us at
Speaker 1: at our Facebook account or our Twitter. We are Blow
Speaker 1: the Mind on both of those and we try and
Speaker 1: update those with all sorts of cool links and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and you can always drop us a line at Blow
Speaker 1: the Mind. That has to fork dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. VI is it
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
Speaker 1: of our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has
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