Could humpback whales be attempting to communicate with us? A recent study published in Marine Mammal Science suggests exactly that. Researchers from the SETI Institute and the University of California have recorded humpback whales producing bubble rings during voluntary and friendly encounters with humans. These actions of Whales appear intentional and communicative. These findings challenge…
Wildlife rescue teams scoured Australia’s east coast on Monday to find and free a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope. Aerial footage showed the whale swimming south of Sydney Harbour trailing a rope attached to a floating buoy. “It makes it more difficult for the whale to dive,” said Pip Jacobs from whale rescue…
The English language is full of wonderful words, from “anemone” and “aurora” to “zenith” and “zodiac.” But these are special occasion words, sprinkled sparingly into writing and conversation. The words in heaviest rotation are short and mundane. And they follow a remarkable statistical rule, which is universal across human languages: The most common word, which…