"Mama Dolphins Sing Their Name to Babies in the Womb"

New reasearch suggests that mother dolphins sing their own name to babies in the womb slightly before and up to two weeks after birth. Its the human equivalent of teaching your child to say "mama". Eventually after a few weeks baby dolphins, called calves, also develop a signiture whitsle of their own. Interestingly enough no other dolphin increases the rate of their signiture whistle at any point in the calves development. This is thought to be so that the calf has a definite preference for the moms whistle. This is also interesting because other studies have shown that in utero and in weeks after birth human babies are particularly respinsive to the mothers voice.
(Picture below from http://www.livescience.com/55699-mother-dolphins-teach-babies-signature-whistle.html)

Death of local animals point to estuary in danger

In Melbourne, Florida, sudden deaths of three manatees in the Banana River have caused some suspicion of what is really going on in the water. Even more manatees, along with other animals such as pelicans and bottlenose dolphins, have been dying in the same stretch of water. Troy Rice, who directs the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program, fears that an ecosystem that supports more than 4,000 species is collapsing under the large amount of pollution over the past few decades. In 2011 and 2012, unknown blooms of algae coated the estuary, killing many fields of underwater sea grass, blocking many necessities for both fish and manatees. Along with the blooms of algae, off Brevard County, the estuary is swamped with nitrogen, which is mostly found in fertilizers, organic matter and waste. There have been limits to dump nitrogen-rich matter, but non-point sources of pollution, like lawn fertilizer and septic tanks, have been harder to control. According to surveys in 2011 and 2012, the waters off Brevard have 45% more nitrogen than expected. There have been indications that the fertilizer runoffs are a major contributions of the growing algae blooms. Although the manatees were in good health when they died, looking inside, there intestines were severely irritated and shocked. Also, there was macroalgae that was in the three stomachs. According to Martine de Wit, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, "We hypothesize that whatever caused these manatees to die was either ingested or gotten through drinking; its logical to think it's the macroalgae that they ingested." There are still some skeptics of whether they are jumping to conclusion or not. If these unexpected deaths continue, the implications are unknown. I found this article interesting because we don't know that dumping waste and nitrogen-rich products into the water is killing animals that are beloved by all. Also, I really like these animals and don't want to see them die without explanation. The ocean and the animals that live in it are very important to us. We have to take care of it.

Big Question For 2012: Will We Talk to the Animals?

This year this has been an understanding in non-human animal vocalizations. scientist recently discovered that dolphins talk like humans in terms of the physical process. the thought that dolphins simply just whistled but when they were studied it showed that that sounds are prodeuced by tissue vibrations which are just like volcal cords to humans. the cymascope was invented so that they could hear that detailed structures within sounds.The CymaScope provides our first glimpse into what the dolphins might be 'seeing' with their sounds." To me this seems simply amazing since i would love to be able to talk to animals. I hope that sometime soon we are able to understand what animals are thinking.

Dolphins Have Super Sense Powers

The article I chose to read described a recently discovered special power that dolphins possess- the ability to sense electrical signals from other animals. These electrical signals can come from the animals contracting muscles, heartbeat, or pumping gills. Dolphins use this special sense power to locate and capture prey in the ocean.

Scientists claim that dolphins are the only mammal to possess this power, however, it has been mentioned that sharks, amphibians, and some fish also can sense electical currents from their prey.

Biologists have discovered that the ability to sense these signals comes from special organs on the dolphins' snout, called crypts. These organs contain a rich blood supply, so researchers knew they had an important function. Sometimes, too, dolphins filter feed off the bottom of the ocean floor, thus having limited visibility. This gave scientists another clue that dolphins would need another method for sensing the location of their prey. Biologists have claimed that this is a major breakthrough in research projects-- they have finally discovered that dolphins use electroreception to detect their prey.

Image- www.horiwood.com

Nerve Cells in Dolphins Form New Ways of Living

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/04/17/dolphin11a.jpg

An article in Science News talks about a new way that guiana dolphins can sense when and where there are prey. In a dolphins snout there are sensory nerves that can detect electrical currents pulsing in the water. These pulses can be formed from a racing heart beat, moving muscles, and gills. Scientists wanted to examine these nerves more so they took a cross section of the dolphins snout and saw that the nerves resembled the same sensory nerves as whiskers do. Many studies were tested to see the dolphins responses to activating these nerves. It was seen that whenever there was an electric current it would move but if the snout was to be covered to hinder the ability of the nerves, the dolphin would not be able to pick up the current, and the dolphin would stay in one spot. This is a very important evolutionary process to help a species stay on the map and not become extinct.

Many animals find new ways to adapt to their environment. This is an important way to find ways to out smart other animals. This is an interesting discovery because these nerves are similar to whiskers however are inside of the snout and evolved to help dolphins. It is always new discoveries that allow, not only animals but humans, to help see new ways to live within our environment.