found via several people

[truepenny]

Blue whales are singing in a lower key. This is somehow deeply sfnal to me, and I love the idea that they're singing lower because their population is larger--although that may or may not be true.

It's really hard to write fiction as purely full-of-wonder as the truth.

Comments

[lossrockhart.livejournal.com]

Bass solo.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Barlow had no alternate theory for the deeper songs, which he sometimes plays on his home stereo. The sound makes his floor shake and upsets his cats.

I can imagine!

[suzanne.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

[artemishi.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing that! One of the local orca pods up here appears to be changing their vocalizations, and I have to wonder if it's for a similar reason to the blues (though the pod is still endangered, it did just get 6 new calves in the past 12 months, which is a record). Now if they could get their numbers up to where the blues are, we might get some great whale boy-band harmonies going on....

[(Anonymous)]

Gah! That article is a shining example of Bad Science. They have a phenomenon - a lowering in pitch. They have a theory - this is caused by an increase in population. Do they then go and check to see whether the population has in fact increased? No! Instead they use the drop in pitch as evidence that there must have been an increase in population! Circular argument much? Whales sing in a lower key because their population has increased. We know their population has increased because they sing in a lower key. In fact, the only guy cited who had actually checked the whale population numbers said the pattern of increase DIDN'T correlate with the change in tone. And the counter-argument of our scientists? Well, there isn't any other theory, so ours MUST be correct!

What DO they teach them in these schools?

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Sorry - that was me - I didn't realise I wasn't logged in.

[soho-iced.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a non-zoologist, surely you could make an argument that deeper frequency calls travel further without loss and so might indicate a population drop? (Not that I necessairily think that, I'm just curious.) Sounds like an interesting observation has given rise to a lot of hand waving, not that there's anything wrong with that.

[magpie49.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the lower key is because the individual whales are living longer and increasing in size?

A human basso profundo has thicker longer vocal cords than other humans who sing in the higher vocal ranges.

Who knows for sure? It's an amazing conundrum.