Smart Dolphins

Yay! I’ve been inspired to do another blog entry. This one came to me last night when I was trying to sleep. Now “trying” might not be the operative word here - I was playing Hangman on my iPod and that’s how my story starts.

The Hangman App I have uses recent news article headings as the clue you’re trying to solve. Once you solve the puzzle, or leave your stick-figure to die as I usually do, you can “dig” which will take you to the full article to read.

So one of the puzzles, that I did not solve, at 4 in the morning was “Fish-catching trick may be spreading among dolphins”. I’m always amazed by all the smart things dolphins can do so I decided to give this article a read.

I recommend you do the same but in case this blog entry is already exceeding your “reading quota” everything will kind of get summarized below (the word summarize is bringing back horrors from high school English – apparently I wasn’t good at summarizing):

So, there are dolphins in Australia (well off the coast of Australia if you want to be technical) that have found a unique way to catch fish. They are picking up conch shells with their beaks and shaking them causing the fish inside to fall into their mouths. This intrigues researchers for several reasons.

First, it’s known already that dolphins can learn new tricks from one generation to other. A mother dolphin will teach her daughter new ways to catch fish (for example by “sponging” or briefly beaching itself). But this new phenomenon with the conch shells is spreading too quickly suggesting that the dolphins are not only passing it down to their young but also across to their ‘friends’. Some dolphins that were seen shaking the conch shells recently are known to “hang out” with dolphins that were seen doing it years ago (How the scientist knows this is beyond me!). It’s a pretty big deal if indeed the dolphins are teaching each other – very human-like.

Here are some examples of relatively new methods of catching fish dolphins have adapted. This video shows dolphins beaching themselves in order to catch fish. I found it just searching on YouTube.

I first saw the video below on TV as part of the BBC Life documentary series. The voice was Oprah Winfrey but I think I like this British dude better

Researchers are interested in these dolphins because it’s possible that they have developed the ability to use foresight and plan ahead with tools. It is not known whether the dolphins are just coincidentally finding conch shells with fish hiding in them or if they are deliberately arranging the conch shells to make them attractive for the fish. As a next step, scientists would like to place some conch shells facing down in the water and see if the dolphins come to fix them for the fish to use. If they do indeed fix the conch shells then it implies that the dolphins are capable of forward planning and that they are using the conch shell as a tool.

If this isn’t really making sense to you (as it didn’t to me initially) I found this random computer animated clip. It was posted just a couple days ago I guess it goes along with the news story.

To find an animal is using an object as a tool is a pretty big deal. Not many animals are capable of that thought process. Off the top of my head I can only think of some types of monkeys who use rocks to break shells of hard fruits to get at, and the crow, who was the star of a very intriguing experiment I saw a while back on The Nature of Things. On the episode, A Murder of Crows, an experiment done where a crow was required to use several steps and tools to attain a piece of food. If you have the time I think it's worth it to watch the full 45 minutes to see how smart crows really are. Otherwise just watch from the 10-minute mark (for about 6 minutes)

So yeah, based on all this I hope you can see how insanely smart dolphins are (well that was the intent but I went on a bit of a tangent with the crow). Maybe another time I'll talk about how smart the octopus is. But not today, I'll let you figure that one out for yourself.



D.M.

Small Talk

So this really isn't on the topic of curiousity but it's what I'm thinking about so I'm writing about it anyways.

I absolutely hate, despise, detest, loathe, scorn (thank you thesaurus) small talk. You're running errands, or at a party, and someone who's name you happen to know appears. I'm talking about the people that you've got absolutely nothing against. They're great people, but the facts are that you never make a point to meet up with this person, nor will you after this chance encounter.

Case in point, today I was at the gym, doing my thing on the elliptical, when my brother's friend, let's call him Z., shows up.

"Hey Z! How are you?"
"Hey, I'm good I'm good, you?"
"Great"
"Wow, I didn't know you went to this gym"
"Yeah I didn't know you come here either"

... continue with the "What have you been up to? Give the truncated version of your past year."
... finish with the "Say hi to the family" line.

Now Z's a cool guy and all. If my brother wasn't (weren't?) so against me being around him and his friends as a kid I probably would be friends with him too. But as it stands I'm not. Obviously I wouldn't know that we go to the same gym. Why do we have to act so shocked to make that discovery?

"No way! Seriously, like we've been going to the same gym all the time, and never crossed paths! How crazy is that?" 

It's not like anything would've changed if I knew he came to this gym. We're not close enough that I'd suggest we become gym buddies or something. But it's all part of the "small talk" that we're forced to do in these types of social situations.

I saw him last year for my brother's wedding (he was a groomsmen) but I haven't seen him since then. We don't hang out, get together, or whatever and I haven't a clue what he's been up to for the last year. And without sounding rude, it doesn't really matter to me what he's been up to. I need to stress that I have nothing against the guy, I really don't, but he's not a part of my life. Regardless, I have to find out not only what he's been doing (in case there's a quiz on it next week) but also divulge what I've been up to. Because I know his existence I now have to make "small talk".

I'm merely using this as an example. Instances like this happen to be all the time. I'm at a party (okay gathering, let's not act like I'm cooler than I really am) and there's people that I don't see that often, but yet they know my name so I've got to talk to them now. I have listen to their life story - which sorry, I will not remember this come tomorrow - and then I have to answer a bunch of prying questions about my life.

I'm not against people, I'm just against meaningless chatter. If I'm going to have a conversation, I want it to be about something important. I don't want to do the "Hi"s, "How are you?", "I'm OK" (even when you're not, because really, you don't want to have that conversation) and all the other motions we're expected to go through.

Why is the most important thing to talk about what you've been doing for the past period of time? Unless you work where I work or do something that directly impacts my life, I don't care what you do. I know here someone's going to think I'm being rude but I'm just saying what you're too polite to say. If you see someone only once a year, is it really all that important to know what has happened in their life since your last encounter? No.

I just hate all the things people say only because you're supposed to say it. There is nothing original about asking how someone is, doing the "Long time no see" gesture (you know what I'm talking about, the gesture with arms that always accompanies that gesture). "Say Hi" to so-and-so for me? No! You call them up and say hi yourself. Does anyone actually pass along these messages?

"Hey so you would not believe who I ran into the other day."
"Who?"
"So-and-so from such-a-place"
"Really? He say anything?"
"Yeah actually I've got a message for you."
"Really? What?"
"He says Hi"

I wish I could put a robot in for my place for the first 5 minutes of any conversation where it's just going to be a bunch of empty small talk. I really don't think you need an actual human being to go through all the motions. Like I said above, I don't plan on remembering anything you tell me, so why do I need to be there and sit through it? I should clarify that I actually am incapable of remembering most things. I have a really really poor memory and I need to see things written out for it to stand a chance of sinking into my brain. I'm a visual learner (something I've discovered recently). If you're just saying words at me, it won't stick.

Your boyfriend's name?   No idea.
What program you're in?   You're in school? I had no idea.
That story you told me last time you saw me?   What? We met before??

So maybe that it why I'm so against small talk. Perhaps if I had a memory better than that of a goldfish's, I would enjoy all the little facts I can gather from small talk. But as it stands, I won't remember a darn thing so it's just a waste of time on my end.

This is probably why I'm so awkward in social situations (or at least one of the many reasons why). I don't like to talk unless there is a purpose to me talking. I don't like to say things that people already know I'm going to say (otherwise why am I wasting time and energy saying them). I am absolutely horrible at that "networking" thing because it's all about the small talk. It's about seeming more interested in a complete stranger then one really should be.

I am trying, really to be more open to this "small talk" thing and talking to people just because you should. It's just weird for me. I hate the unoriginality of small talk. Clichés especially I hate but I could write a whole other rant about that (Seriously - why say something that has already been said like a million times before by a ridiculous number of people?).

So in conclusion:
1. Small talk is robotic. We say things because we are forced to (by proper etiquette I suppose)
2. I wish people would just say what they want to say, and not what they have to say. Why is there such a set checklist for casual conversation?
3. I am bias in my opinion because for me small talk feels especially pointless - given my poor memory.
4. This might make me seem anti-social, but I'm working on it.

D.M.

Cannibalism in the Womb!

Hello Readers,

When I started this blog I totally said that it was going to be a place to "share my reservoir of knowledge and random comments". Well total fail on that because I've been having many random observations and not sharing them. Perhaps it's because I'm lazy, or maybe I'm just waiting for very epic things to come along but I have certainly not been sharing my reservoir of knowledge.

If I want to form this blog into something sustainable, then I need to start writing about the less epic, and likely less lengthy, random events in my life.

The title hopefully grabbed your attention. I know you're dying to know what I'm talking about. A couple days ago I was reading National Geographic, the November issue, when I came across the following picture and caption:

A sand tiger shark off the Bonin Islands will soon give birth. During
the nine-month pregnancy, the largest two pups will have eaten their
siblings for sustenance, a kind of cannibalism unique to this species.

Source: National Geographic Archives - see 10th picture in the slide, second page

I just knew I had to do some research into this, because well:

1. It says during pregnancy, so they eat each other while still inside the mother?? and ...
2. (OK, This took me a while to realize so don't feel embarrassed if it didn't click for you immediately) Hello, sharks are fish! What the hell is a shark doing pregnant? Fish lay eggs!

With these questions in mind I went to work. What is the natural place to conduct my research? Wikipedia of course. I've linked everything up but if you're too lazy to look, here's what I've discovered:

• Sand tiger sharks are also called grey nurse sharks. (reason unknown)
• The species practices vivipary, which means that the embryo develops inside the mother, eventually leading to a live birth, i.e. eggs kind of hatch inside the mother and the young grow up there for a while.
• Female sand tiger sharks have two uteri.
• The shark babies (called pups) develop and will eat yolk sac, and each other, until only one is left, in each uterus.
• The eggs do hatch inside the mother for most sharks (apparently) but only with the sand tiger sharks do pups go all "cannibal" before they're even "born"

Crazy, I know! Now unfortunately I can't think of any cool ways to work this tidbit of knowledge into a conversation with friends or family: "Hey, so I know an animal that will eat it's own kind at -2 months old!" or "Good thing we're not sand tiger sharks. You think school bullying is bad ... ..." might work. If you think of any other ways let me know. :)

p.s. I'd like to thank Shannon for the National Geographic subscription. True I'm still on November but I'm loving it. I'm actually being super geeky by highlighting in it (with a ruler because I don't want wobbly lines in my Nat. Geo.)