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Preschoolers can engage in “metacognition”
How do whales sleep? It’s always been difficult to tell, because we can’t easily observe their daily habits. But back in the late 90s, a female gray whale was rescued at sea and esconced at Sea World in San Diego, where a couple of scientists recorded its wake/sleep behavior for nine days solid. They wrote a paper with their observations in 1990 (PDF here).
The results? Well, it turns out that a busy day of sieve-feeding benthic crustaceans really knocks you out. The whale slept about 40% of the day, or about 9.5 hours. Also, the whale was diurnal, sleeping, like us, mostly at night.
Cool enough. But given those multiton brains they’re carrying around, the really big question is: Do whales dream? The scientists recorded eye movement and neck-and-body jerks that suggested that indeed, “paradoxical sleep” — REM — might be going on. As they wrote …
… we think that the presence of jerks during rest in the gray whale, taken together with our previous data on three species of dolphins, allows us to suggest that short episodes of PS do exist in Cetaceans in a modified form that is not accompanied by the classical polygraphical or behavioral signs of PS observed in most terrestrial mammals.
So, having duly cited the literature, we are now free to engage in the deliriously unscientific pastime of wondering: What in god’s name are whales dreaming about? The underwater scenery? Prime numbers? The telepathic messages they’re receiving from Alpha Centuri?
My favorite part of the paper is the diagrams showing the posture of the whale during sleep. Apparently she either floated slightly below the surface of the water, or chillaxed on the floor of the tank. Since this wasn’t an in-the-wild observation, of course, it doesn’t tell us whether or not whales would behave the same way in the briny deep, but perhaps future studies will explore this.
(Thanks to Science Blogs for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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