St Andrews scientists ask if whales have 'dialects'

St Andrews scientists ask if whales have 'dialects'

Members of the public are being asked by scientists at the University of St Andrews to help them investigate the way whales communicate.

Ancient environment found to drive marine biodiversity

Ancient environment found to drive marine biodiversity

Much of our knowledge about past life has come from the fossil record – but how accurately does that reflect the true history and drivers of biodiversity on Earth? "It's a question that goes back a long way to the time of Darwin, who looked at the fossil record and tried to understand what it tells us about the history of life," says Shanan Peters, an assistant professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In fact, the fossil record can tell us a great deal, he says in a new study. In a report published Friday, Nov. 25 in Science magazine, he and colleague Bjarte Hannisdal, of the University of Bergen in Norway, show that the evolution of marine life over the past 500 million years has been robustly and independently driven by both ocean chemistry and sea level changes.

Dolphin Whistles Help Solve The Mysteries Of The Cosmos

Dolphin Whistles Help Solve The Mysteries Of The Cosmos

With a lot of help from Flipper, scientists have a better shot at understanding phenomena like black holes and supernovae.

Let's back up. To understand the connection between dolphins and supernovae, you have to start in the year 2000, when German company EvoLogics was founded. EvoLogics is one of the only firms on the planet whose entire output consists of biomimetic innovation. Its products and proofs-of-concept include robotic manta rays and penguins, ultra-efficient propellers and Terminator-like human torsos.

What Can Dolphins Tell Us About The Evolution of Friendship?

What Can Dolphins Tell Us About The Evolution of Friendship?

Scientists thought they had a pretty good handle on the social interactions of bottlenose dophins (Tursiops). They’ve used the term fission-fusion dynamics to describe dolphin (and non-human primate) society and so far it has served researchers well. Fission-fusionsocieties among dolphins are characterized by two levels of social hierarchy: groups of two or three related males (“first-order alliances”) which work together to guard one or more females from other males, and larger teams comprised of several first-order alliances (“second-order alliances”) which cooperate to “steal” females from other groups. Since the individuals in first- and second-order alliances are related and therefore share genes, this sort of cooperation can be explained by kin selection.

News for Your Neurons Sperm Whales Really Do Learn From Each Other

Link: News for Your Neurons Sperm Whales Really Do Learn From Each Other

Sperm whales, Earth’s biggest-brained animals, live in far-flung clans with lifestyles so different and vocalizations so complex that it’s natural to think they have culture.

But is that really true? Might sperm whales simply be following genetic instructions? Could their “culture” really be a set of instinctive, mechanical imperatives?

Researchers led by Hal Whitehead of Dalhousie University and Luke Rendell of Scotland’s St. Andrews University, two of the world’s foremost sperm whale biologists, have asked just this question.