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Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

news.discovery.com

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Re: Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

#12
post #7

> In a scientific first, researchers have just reproduced what a dolphin saw as it encountered a male diver. I wonder why they specified that it was a male diver? Would a dolphin's echolocation be able to tell a male human from a female human? The resolution doesn't look high enough to distinguish external genitalia, but maybe differences in internal composition (such as body fat) might change the character of the ec…

There is good evidence that dolphins can see inside other mammals with their sonar and determine if there is a pregnancy. They can get information about your innards.

Re: Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

#13
post #7

> In a scientific first, researchers have just reproduced what a dolphin saw as it encountered a male diver. I wonder why they specified that it was a male diver? Would a dolphin's echolocation be able to tell a male human from a female human? The resolution doesn't look high enough to distinguish external genitalia, but maybe differences in internal composition (such as body fat) might change the character of the ec…

I'm, ahem, a bit out of my depth here, but this reads to me like a lossless translation from an original language which inherently expressed the gender. They've done the same thing with "the female dolphin".

Re: Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

#14
post #8
post #7

> In a scientific first, researchers have just reproduced what a dolphin saw as it encountered a male diver. I wonder why they specified that it was a male diver? Would a dolphin's echolocation be able to tell a male human from a female human? The resolution doesn't look high enough to distinguish external genitalia, but maybe differences in internal composition (such as body fat) might change the character of the ec…

Occam's Razor suggests old-fashioned sexism

I don't follow. How does sexism explain this?

Re: Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

#15
I may just be being very slow today, but the methodology is rather unclear to me. eg "imprinted the signal onto a water membrane and then computer enhanced the resulting image"

I'll admit, I'm.. not entirely persuaded by CymaScope's "biology" page:

https://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/biology.html

"Cymatics--the trigger for life?

Spiritual traditions from many cultures speak of sound as having been responsible for the creation of life. The words of St John's gospel are a good example:

In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. ['Word' meaning 'sound']

The science of cymatics, the study of visible sound, is beginning to yield clues to one of the most challenging questions in science: what triggered the creation of life on earth?

The hypothetical model we have developed was inspired by ancient traditions and demonstrates that sound and cymatic forces could have worked together to become the dynamic force that created the first stirrings of life."

Re: Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

#17
This is spiritual new-age pseudoscience, and it's not worthy of HN.

The web site is by a group called Sonic Age America [1], which turns out to be a guy named John Stuart Reid and his wife [2], whose occupation is "energetic healer". They believe that life started with sound, and have invented "cymatics, the study of visible sound" ("based on the principle that when sound encounters a membrane such as your skin or the surface of water, it imprints an invisible pattern of energy") and "sound healing" ("sound is fast regaining its place as the pre-eminent healing modality") [2].

[1] https://www.cymascope.com/aboutus.html

[2] https://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/Caduceus%20article-1...

Re: Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

#18
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occam's Razor suggests old-fashioned sexism

I don't follow. How does sexism explain this?

translation of uselessly gendered pronouns where no neuter exists (as mentioned in another comment) is explained by unawareness to the source language's imprinted sexism.

Re: Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

#19

This is spiritual new-age pseudoscience, and it's not worthy of HN. The web site is by a group called Sonic Age America [1], which turns out to be a guy named John Stuart Reid and his wife [2], whose occupation is "energetic healer". They believe that life started with sound, and have invented "cymatics, the study of visible sound" ("based on the principle that when sound encounters a membrane such as your skin or th…

I agree that much of their content has a "new-agey" feel, but that's not sufficient to discredit the particulars of the claims they are making about dolphin communication. It's conceivable their new-agey motivations for the work could nonetheless have led to a legitimate discovery, even if it is shrouded in quacky words like "cymatics".

Re: Image Shows a Dolphin's Echolocated Impression of a Submerged Human

#20

I may just be being very slow today, but the methodology is rather unclear to me. eg "imprinted the signal onto a water membrane and then computer enhanced the resulting image" I'll admit, I'm.. not entirely persuaded by CymaScope's "biology" page: https://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/biology.html "Cymatics--the trigger for life? Spiritual traditions from many cultures speak of sound as having been responsible for…

This page describes the methodology in a bit more detail: http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/oceanography.html

According to that page, here is what they claim to have done: they placed an object (flower pot, plus-symbol, human body, etc) in front of a dolphin and recorded the echolocation sounds that reflected back from the object in the water as it was scanned by the dolphin.

Then they reproduced the recording of the reflected echolocation pulse and focused it onto a small dish of water such that a two-dimensional surface wave was generated on its surface, which was then imaged (how fast? how many times? not clear) using the "cymascope". These images were then further "computer enhanced". Disturbingly, each of these images revealed the face of Richard David James[1].

The rationale behind this methodology is that it approximates (according to them; I have no idea if this is true) the way echolocation pulses are received by the dolphin's cochlea. They claim that the incoming sound pulses are translated into surface acoustic waves that propagate across the basilar and tectorial membranes in the dolphins cochlea. (see this image: http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/images/Dolphin-sees-w...) This is the surface wave pattern they attempted to reproduce on the surface of the water in their "cymascope."

Gonna go see if I can find any peer reviewed articles on this stuff.

[1]: lol no jk

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