[HN Gopher] Dolphin mothers modify signature whistles in the pre...
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Dolphin mothers modify signature whistles in the presence of their
own calves
Author : gumby
Score : 58 points
Date : 2023-06-30 19:39 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pnas.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pnas.org)
| surfpel wrote:
| Maybe we do it to babies to amplify the signals we're giving
| them, since they can't interpret most information yet. That could
| explain why we do it to dogs too, since we can hardly communicate
| with them.
|
| I've also noticed something similar when talking to people with
| whom I hardly share any common language with. I use more obvious
| or exaggerated facial expressions and vocal intonations to try to
| convey meaning better.
| lucideer wrote:
| I know for dogs baby talk can be useful to separate your
| communications, ensuring dogs only react when you're directly
| addressing them, and not when you bring up keywords in idle
| conversation on unrelated topics.
|
| Not sure if this kind of compartmentalising is in any way
| useful for human babies, probably not in any beneficial way I
| guess.
| fsckboy wrote:
| long ago they taught us in linguistics class, deaf people signing
| will also say (the equivalent of) "wa wa" to their kids for
| "water".
|
| they also told us that signed poetry "enjoys" a physical movement
| sort of rhyming (which is also the oral origin of sonic rhyming
| anyway, i suppose)
| jamesgreenleaf wrote:
| Can't wait until our technology allows us to talk to them.
|
| Some dolphins have more than twice the number of neurons we do.
|
| I bet they've got some interesting things to say.
| nicolashahn wrote:
| That'll be amazing, then we can give them jobs and make them
| pay taxes.
| prox wrote:
| "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed
| that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had
| achieved so much--the wheel, New York, wars and so on--whilst
| all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water
| having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always
| believed that they were far more intelligent than man--for
| precisely the same reasons." - Douglas Adams
| nine_k wrote:
| I remember that seals and dolphins were / are trained to
| patrol navy bases and vessels, so they are effectively
| employed by the state. I suppose their employer (e.g. DoD)
| pays 100% of the taxes for them though.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Let's wax philosophical on the tax implications of ancient
| chattel slavery
|
| :) Just kidding. Nice idea
| nine_k wrote:
| I can imagine (but too lazy to write an proper SF story) a
| situation when scientists finally crack the code of cetacean
| languages and achieve contact with various whales. They
| encounter a sad, savage culture, while the whales inform them
| that they used to have a great and sophisticated intellectual
| culture, passed orally, but it was all destroyed during a
| genocide a couple centuries before.
| Hary06 wrote:
| It would be a nice story.
| gumby wrote:
| A good one, but not a nice one.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Depends how the ending works out.
|
| A: Disney: "We all come to be the best of friends"
|
| B: Quentin Tarantino: "Whales recruit the other sea-life.
| Sentences all humans to death"
| nine_k wrote:
| Mr Tarantino, have you ever considered filming "Moby
| Dick"?
|
| (In my story, likely the larger whales would remain
| scornful of humans, mostly avoiding contact, to say
| nothing of cooperation.)
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| A whale of a tale.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _a proper SF story_
|
| and in my Humboldt opinion, it would have appeal well
| beyond the San Francisco area!
| gumby wrote:
| > Some dolphins have more than twice the number of neurons we
| do.
|
| Larger animals have more neurons because they have a larger
| surface area (full of sensors, that need to terminate
| someplace).
|
| Some animals have noses with very large surface area (lots of
| sensors). I suspect surface area of my Irish Wolfhound's nose
| is something like the size of a football pitch.
|
| I'd bet dolphins, seals, and the like have a lot more
| sensors/cm2 of skin than humans, and probably other important
| sensing as well that we don't need.
|
| Unlike, say, octopus, I'd expect the higher order reasoning of
| mammals to use structures somewhat similar to each other. I
| doubt think dolphins' brains devote much of those extra neurons
| to higher order reason (but this is speculation -- I'm no
| cetaceanologist, nor neurologist for that matter).
|
| > I bet they've got some interesting things to say.
|
| Probably _much_ less than the average human, and that 's a
| pretty low bar, even with a generous definition of
| "interesting"
| nine_k wrote:
| Find out how dolphins sleep. They must have profound enough
| differences in how they experience consciousness, however you
| define it.
|
| (This makes the prospects of talking to them all the more
| interesting.)
| engineer_22 wrote:
| >I'd bet dolphins, seals, and the like have a lot more
| sensors/cm2 of skin than humans, and probably other important
| sensing as well that we don't need.
|
| That's interesting. For what reason should we presume
| sensors/cm2 is higher in aquatic than terrestrial species? Is
| sensation of flow across the skin very important to them? I
| was thinking about this myself and presumed the opposite,
| that proprioception is important but feeling each portion of
| the skin isnt so important, after all sensation across the
| skin for a swimming animal would be unending, like tinnitus
| for a man.
|
| Good thinking and glad we could connect.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| > Probably much less than the average human, and that's a
| pretty low bar, even with a generous definition of
| "interesting"
|
| In the open ocean, an environment so foreign to us, we might
| not have a good sense for what /is/ interesting. Perhaps
| tactics is interesting to dolphins. Perhaps social equity is
| of chief importance, or they control technology related to
| the moving of currents and surface waters, we won't know
| unless we can place ourselves in their position, else its
| speculation.
|
| Again, quite interesting and glad you've shared your ideas,
| hope we can connect.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Fascinating idea.
|
| That we could fantasize to communicate to extra-terrestrial
| aliens but neglect communication with our intelligent earthly
| neighbors... It seems to me like a lost opportunity.
| djxfade wrote:
| So long and thanks for all the fish
| zgluck wrote:
| But have they built dolpin-gpt, or even dolphin-tcp? (You could
| argue they have something like dolpin-udp.)
| myshpa wrote:
| Want to protect dolphins, whales and other bycatch?
|
| Don't eat fish.
|
| https://www.seaspiracy.org/facts
|
| 10,000+ dolphins are killed as bycatch off the coast of France
| every year
|
| Millions of tonnes of dead animals: the growing scandal of fish
| waste
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/09/millions...
|
| Are fish far more intelligent than we realize?
|
| https://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5958871/fish-intelligence-smart...
|
| A fish can sense another's fear, a study shows
|
| https://apnews.com/article/empathy-zebrafish-oxytocin-origin...
|
| Eating mackerel no longer sustainable, Good Fish Guide advises
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/05/mackerel...
|
| 4 Ways The Fishing Industry is Destroying the Planet
|
| https://animalequality.org/blog/2022/06/07/fishing-industry-...
| darksaints wrote:
| Nah, I'm good.
| 9dev wrote:
| Care to elaborate? You don't mind lots of probably very much
| intelligent animals being killed by accident? Why?
| [deleted]
| thriftwy wrote:
| A classic dialogue from Dog's Heart, regarding starving
| German children, ensues.
| darksaints wrote:
| Global warming is heavily impacted by animal agriculture.
| The vegan solution is to stop consuming animals. But why
| can't we just stop eating bovines, which cause 80% of those
| emissions? Why can't we switch to chicken? Why can't we eat
| sardines? Why can't we modify industrial ag diets so they
| produce less enteric fermentation? Why can't we have carbon
| taxes so that the costs of remediation are priced into the
| meat? If you ask the vegan, none of that works...We MuSt
| ImEdIaTeLy CeAsE aLl HuMaN cOnSuMpTiOn Of AnImAlS!!!!!!!!!
|
| It's the same here. It's not good enough to better regulate
| fishing methods that minimize bycatch. It's not good enough
| to tax and penalize bycatch. It's not good enough to shift
| consumption to small pelagic forage fish that have
| negligible bycatch. It's not good enough to shift to farmed
| fish, or freshwater fish. Nothing is ever good enough...we
| must immediately discard human diets and cultures that have
| evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, and if we're
| not willing to do that, we obviously hate dolphins. Can you
| sense an eye-roll here?
|
| So here is my elaboration: vegans start from the end goal
| and then work backwards to find any reason to justify it,
| no matter how disconnected from reality it is. And it is
| always the same...the only way to solve every single
| problem on the planet is to stop consuming animal products.
| It lacks any form of intelligent thought or nuance, and it
| is an extremely disingenuous form of argument, so it gets
| the response it deserves: derision and dismissal. Come back
| when you want to have an actual conversation.
| myshpa wrote:
| > If you ask the vegan, none of that works
|
| Yes, because there are now 8 billion people, and nature
| is on the brink of collapse.
|
| > It's not good enough to tax and penalize bycatch
|
| There are 5 mil. fishing boats, there is nobody who could
| reliably monitor them. Doesn't work. See Seaspiracy movie
| for an example.
|
| > vegans start from the end goal
|
| I became a vegan primarily due to environmental reasons.
| It's a logical conclusion when studying the issues of
| climate change, the anthropocene, deforestation and
| biodiversity loss.
|
| It's a complicated problem, and you would have to study
| the issue yourself, not enough space here. You'd have to
| read a lot of text that goes against your beliefs. Not
| many people are able or ready to do that. Many rather
| prefer to stay ignorant
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance).
|
| Some links to get you started (more articles and papers @
| https://www.plantbaseddata.org):
|
| Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our
| Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and
| Omnivorous Diets
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110/htm
|
| How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to
| Climate Targets? Accounting for Uncertainty of Life Cycle
| Assessments by Applying a Probabilistic Approach
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14449
|
| Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat
| consumption
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/
|
| Livestock and climate change: what if the key actors in
| climate change are... cows, pigs, and chickens?
|
| https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Livestock-and-
| climate-...
|
| Without Changing Diets, Agriculture Alone Could Produce
| Enough Emissions to Surpass 1.5degC of Global Warming
|
| https://www.wri.org/insights/without-changing-diets-
| agricult...
|
| Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth
| system exceeding planetary boundaries
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320356605_Agricu
| ltu...
|
| Avoiding meat and dairy is 'single biggest way' to reduce
| your impact on Earth
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoid
| ing...
|
| If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce
| global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
| https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
| https://ourworldindata.org/biodiversity
|
| > Come back when you want to have an actual conversation
|
| About how you want to keep eating meat even if it means
| total destruction of the environment? Do you have studies
| that show it's sustainable? Studies not paid for by meat
| & dairy industry?
|
| Inside big beef's climate messaging machine: confuse,
| defend and downplay
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/03/beef-
| ind...
|
| Why Right-Wingers Are So Afraid of Men Eating Vegetables
|
| https://newrepublic.com/article/171781/meat-culture-war-
| cric...
|
| The meat industry is borrowing tactics from Big Oil to
| obfuscate the truth about climate change
|
| https://www.salon.com/2022/11/11/the-meat-industry-is-
| borrow...
|
| The Big Beef With the Meat Industry's Advertising Tactics
|
| https://medium.com/@jodi_64782/the-big-beef-with-the-
| meat-in...
|
| If you have the facts, bring it on. Don't talk to me
| about culture, though
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw).
| pharmakom wrote:
| The problem I have with this argument for individuals is
| that adopting these behaviours has negligible impact on
| an individual scale. Put another way: if the world won't
| change, why should I?
| ddoolin wrote:
| They should probably stop killing dolphins indiscriminately
| in the name of catching fish.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Grain harvesting kills a lot of field mice, who are perhaps not
| as smart as dolphins, but are still active, playful mammals.
|
| They also were not raised and selected for that fate.
|
| So?
| myshpa wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230204130304/https://www.econo.
| ..
|
| Nearly half of all grain is either burned as fuel or eaten by
| animals
|
| https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en/vegans-kill-animals-too
|
| "Crop fields do indeed disrupt the habitats of wild animals,
| and wild animals are also killed when harvesting plants.
| However, this point makes the case for a plant-based diet and
| not against it, since many more plants are required to
| produce a measure of animal flesh for food (often as high as
| 12:1) than are required to produce an equal measure of plants
| for food (which is obviously 1:1). Because of this, a plant-
| based diet causes less suffering and death than one that
| includes animals."
|
| > They also were not raised and selected for that fate.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUmmN3lnUhY
| nine_k wrote:
| The difference is that we are not trying to learn how to talk
| to mice, as to potential intellectual peers.
| troyvit wrote:
| So ...
|
| 1. 5k acre grain fields are an artificial monoculture we
| created that happens to be a great habitat for field mice.
| This versus going to dolphins' natural habitat and killing
| them while taking their food.
|
| 2. Those 5k acre industrially processed grain fields are
| actually a horrible way to farm and are reducing the
| arability of the land much more quickly than any other method
| we've come up with, so I view your comment as yet another
| reason why we need to wipe out megafarming and replace it
| with something more sustainable.
|
| 3. And before you bring up "but we'll starve!"
|
| a. We will anyway since we're using the land without
| replenishing it, and
|
| b. we could just stop wasting 40% of the food we produce to
| make up any deficit that comes from sustainable or
| regenerative farming, and
|
| c. you're trying to draw some sort of equivalency between
| dolphins and mice, so I just ask you to extend that
| equivalency to humans and ask yourself why people are any
| more important than the other 2.
| bamfly wrote:
| > b. we could just stop wasting 40% of the food we produce
| to make up any deficit that comes from sustainable or
| regenerative farming, and
|
| Waste is high because food is cheap. Reducing waste will
| look exactly the same as making food expensive.
| SilasX wrote:
| Mice were absolutely selected into the "Zerg rush/high loss
| rate" niche.
| mjfl wrote:
| Do dolphins taste good?
| pvaldes wrote:
| Welcome to the flavor of mercury
| andsoitis wrote:
| While cooked dolphin meat has a flavor very similar to beef
| liver, it is high in mercury, and may pose a health danger to
| humans when consumed.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mammals_as_food
| sockaddr wrote:
| Might taste like cow?
| nine_k wrote:
| I suppose there should be better ways to catch fish but not
| dolphins; they are different enough.
|
| Not that the ocean fishing industry isn't pretty screwed
| currently, with overfishing, lost gear which is deadly for
| marine life, etc. OTOH farmed fish exists (of what I regularly
| see it's mostly salmon, trout, and tilapia).
| thriftwy wrote:
| A hundred upvotes.
|
| Indeed we should be chopping people responsible for
| regulating fishing industry alive and feeding their bodies to
| dolphins; but why would that need to affect my feeding
| habits?
|
| Including parliaments of some countries wholesale: Japan,
| perhaps?
|
| "So you needed to pay fishermen to recycle their fishing
| nets; but instead you choose, by action or inaction, to
| charge them for recycling their fishing nets; which led to
| fishermen dumping their nets in the ocean; so we will now
| need to chop you into pieces and sell tickets, making your
| family watch; otherwise, have a nice day while you still
| can".
| myshpa wrote:
| Salmon and trout feed usually contains a combination of
| fishmeal, fish oil, and plant-based ingredients. Fishmeal and
| fish oil are typically derived from small marine fish like
| anchovies, sardines, or menhaden.
|
| IIRC it takes upto 5 kg of fishmeal to produce 1kg of farmed
| fish.
|
| Fish farming has also issues (water pollution,
| eutrophication, diseases and parasites, feed dependency
| contributing to overfishing and unsustainable fishing
| practices, ...).
|
| Antibiotic use in fish farms poses threat to humans, study
| says https://www.aquaculturenorthamerica.com/antibiotic-use-
| in-fi...
| ge96 wrote:
| there is the lab grown salmon, wildtype not sure how far
| they are right now
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| As a Norwegian, I can tell you farmed fish is not as
| ecologically friendly as one might believe. Here it's
| generally farmed in fjords. Because factory farming and
| parasites go hand in hand, parasites are a huge problem,
| killings lots of fish. To combat this, they dump a bunch of
| nasty chemicals into the water like organophosphates and
| ivermectin. This is very harmful to aquatic life in the area.
| The parasites bred in these conditions can also be dangerous
| to aquatic ecosystems. And farmed salmon have a tendency to
| escape their ponds and mess up wild fish populations.
|
| May be less ecologically harmful than fishing, but it's not
| exactly good either.
|
| Edit: correction as per the helpful reply below.
| belval wrote:
| Not to counter your comment as I agree, but:
|
| > nasty chemicals into the water like hydrogen peroxide
|
| Hydrogen peroxide really isn't that problematic. It is
| pretty unstable and reacts into oxygen and water. It kills
| algae and bacteria in what is likely the cleanest way
| possible.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Fair enough. That was just the one I remembered off the
| top of my head. Always happy to be corrected!
|
| But they're using all sorts of different stuff. It's been
| so bad at times they've basically been throwing spaghetti
| at a wall to see if it sticks. Most of it there's not
| even _any_ research to suggest the drugs they 're trying
| are safe ecologically. But they try it anyway; it's a
| woefully underregulated industry right now.
|
| And there's the general problem that any indiscriminate
| use of antibiotics(in the general definition of the word,
| not the one restricted to bacteria) in a factory farming
| context is bound to lead to the development of highly
| resistant pathogens. That just follows from Darwin,
| really.
| OJFord wrote:
| There's no way mackerel are unsustainable, unqualified.
|
| Maybe not at present net-dragging prices, but I've been
| mackereling a couple of times, with crab lines trailing off the
| back (while we headed to a deeper spot for rod fishing),
| absolute easiest fishing imaginable, it doesn't qualify as
| sport. Some 'bycatch', but only other edibles like swordfish.
| And of course fishing like that you can set them free if not
| desired anyway.
|
| Depending on season I can't really imagine it could be much
| more expensive. Afaict the only reason there isn't more
| commercial action from small boats is the competition from big
| trawlers. If you eat mackerel at an independent restaurant in a
| coastal town on the UK I think there's a good chance it's a
| local catch by a local fisherman. They're just not going to get
| the bigger contracts, nor pieces of them when they can be
| filled in total by a bigger operation.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| Don't have pets also (they eat 1/5th of worldwide fish
| production)
| [deleted]
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| Pretty sure it's 20% of all meat
| ch4s3 wrote:
| You can by fish free pet food.
|
| I'm not sure why people are downvoting this, you can
| literally by fish free cat food https://cats.com/fish-free-
| cat-food.
| [deleted]
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