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Science Quickly

Unicorns of the Sea Reveal Sound Activities

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2020

⏱️ 4 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Narwhals, recognizable by their large single tusk, make distinct sounds that are now being analyzed in depth by researchers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.com.j.

0:23.9

That's y-A-K-U-L-T dot-C-O-J-P.

0:28.4

When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on YacL.

0:33.6

This is Scientific American 60-second science.

0:36.9

I'm Julia Rosen.

0:38.9

Bye, buddy. Hope you find your dad.

0:41.9

Thanks, Mr. Narwhal.

0:44.0

In real life, Narwhals don't speak English,

0:46.9

like the one bidding farewell to Will Ferrell's character in the movie Elf.

0:51.1

Instead, they sound more like this.

0:55.0

Okay. movie elf. Instead, they sound more like this. That's an audio clip recorded by scientists last summer under the icy waters of Northwest Greenland.

1:04.0

If we want to describe what animals are doing, we first better understand what sounds are telling us.

1:11.6

Yvgeny Podolsky, a geophysicist at Hokkaido University in Japan.

1:15.6

Podolsky and his colleagues study the soundscape of glacial fjords.

1:19.6

There are noisy places where icebergs crash into the ocean and air bubbles fizz out of melting ice.

1:25.6

These fjords are also home to narwhals. The animals are sometimes

1:29.6

called unicorns of the sea because of their single long spiraled tusk, and they're shy, which makes

1:35.2

them hard to study. So Podolski teamed up with local Inuit hunters who snuck up on narwhals in kayaks

1:41.1

and captured audio. That's the sound of a narwhal looking for food using echolocation, like a dolphin or a bat.

...

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