The sea is filled with giant, super-smart aquatic mammals communicating across vast distances and using the stars to navigate. No jokes in this description! Whales are amazing!
The sea is filled with giant, super-smart aquatic mammals communicating across vast distances and using the stars to navigate. No jokes in this description! Whales are amazing!
Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions!
While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Stefan: @itsmestefanchin Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @slamschultz Hank: @hankgreen
If you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out SciShowTangnets.org
[Truth or Fail]
Dogs sniffing out poop
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4703337/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/meet-dogs-sniffing-out-whale-poop-science-180958050/
https://conservationbiology.uw.edu/research-programs/killer-whales/
https://www.biology.washington.edu/news/news/1504634400/tucker-orca-poop-detection-dog-seattlemet
Robots scooping poop
https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/30/technology/mit-robots-sewers/index.html
Whale litter box
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/faking-out-whales
[Fact Off]
Whale heartbeat
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/50/25329
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/su-rrf112219.php
Lunge feeding
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11135
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uobc-gwh042815.php
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-ultimate-mouthful-lunge-feeding-in-rorqual-whales
https://www.popsci.com/whale-nerve-cells-can-stretch
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982215002845
[Ask the Science Couch]
Whale navigation
https://www.wired.com/2011/04/humpback-whale-migration/
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsbl.2011.0279
https://www.livescience.com/63791-underwater-volcanoes-tasmania.html
[Butt One More Thing]
Anal syrup
http://whitelab.biology.dal.ca/rwb/kogiastat.pdf