Whale

How Whale Songs Can Help Us Explore the Ocean

Some whale songs can give scientists valuable information about the ocean’s geography, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science. What’s more, their songs can be used as a form of seismic testing, which uses blasts of sound to map out the ocean floor. Forms of this technology can be harmful to whales…

Earther Molly Taft Feb 11

Photo: Fredrik Christiansen (left), Fabian Rodríguez-González (center) and Hunter Warick (right).

Gray Whales Off Baja California Are Dying En Masse, and Scientists Don’t Know Why

An unusual mortality event of gray whales off the coast of Mexico is disturbingly persistent, according to a study published this week in the Marine Ecology Progress Series. The die-off began in 2019, and the gray whale death count is currently at 384, though the actual number may be higher. Unusual mortality events describe the…

Earther Isaac Schultz Jan 25

Here’s How Much Bubble Wrap You Need To Wrap A Giant Whale Heart

It’s not every day one stumbles upon a 400 pound whale heart, but when you do, you put that shit in a museum. Thankfully, that’s exactly what the folks at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) did when they uncovered a dead blue whale in Newfoundland back in 2014. Since then, biologist Jacqueline Miller and her…

Tech News Rae Paoletta May 18

Giant Sea Monster Washes On Shore Because World Is Ending

While many of us envisioned the world going out in a wicked blaze of glory, sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the way things will go. Instead, we have to settle for Ted Cruz, the other horsemen of the apocalypse, and this massive beast that just washed up on the shore of Indonesia’s Maluku province.…

Tech News Rae Paoletta May 12

17th Century Seascape Contains a Secret Portrait of a Beached Whale

For over 300 years, this scene set by Dutch painter Hendrick van Anthonissen appeared to be nothing more than a depiction of a day at the beach. But just a few layers of paint deeper, it had a secret: A giant portrait of a beached whale. Top image: Scheveningen Sands (post restoration) by Hendrick van…

io9 Ria Misra Jun 4

Scuba diver almost gets swallowed by 49-foot whale

This 49-foot (15 meter) Bryde’s whale came close to accidentally swallowing diver Rainer Schimpf off the coat of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The whale appeared right under Rainer, going up mouth open, swimming at full speed to catch as many fish as she could. Schimpf was underwater watching the annual sardine run, a natural event…

Sploid Jesus Diaz May 20

Take The Northbound Whale Bus Uptown

After the sea levels rose, the bus lines remained more or less the same, although it was difficult to keep the whales from veering off the route through a krill swarm. “Northbound Whale” is part of Tim Doyle’s The Sea Also Rises series of prints, which are available from Nakatomi. Doyle is selling 200 limited…

io9 Lauren Davis Mar 25

Friendly wild whale goes to fisherman and says hi waving her fin

The folks from I Want to Fish were about start fishing salmon off the coast of British Columbia when a humpback whale came to their boat to say hi. No, really, she actually came by, said hi waving her fin and left. That’s how awesome whales roll. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff.…

Sploid Jesus Diaz Feb 27

I can’t stop watching this whale explode

Seriously. Can’t look away. Warning, there’s an exploding whale below the fold. It’s quite graphic. (What else you were expecting?) There are two types of exploding whales in this world. There are the whales that blow up with the assistance of explosives (à la this infamous example in Oregon), and there are the whales that…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 26

Oh, how nice: a hyperrealistic life-sized sculpture of a beached whale

This fifty-five foot sperm whale whale is actually a sculpture. The cleanup workers? Those are actors. The sculpture was recently displayed along the banks of the Thames for the Greenwich_Docklands International Festival, though it has since been moved to the Old Royal Naval College in London, where it’ll be on display through tomorrow, Friday June…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Jun 28

An eye the size of a softball has washed ashore in Florida

Holy heck, people. Now that is an eyeball. Beach-walker Gino Covacci encountered the monstrosity yesterday while ambling about the Florida coast, and while scientists have yet to identify the creature from whence it came, the consensus seems to be that whatever it was, it was big. According to the Sun-Sentinal, the waters of Southern Florida…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Oct 12

This Is the World’s First Adult White Killer Whale

Say hello to Iceberg. Spotted off the coast of Kamchatka in eastern Russia, he is the first ever entirely white adult killer whale to be observed. While there have been examples of white whales in the past—including one orca with a rare genetic condition that died in a Canadian aquarium in 1972 when it was…

Biology Jamie Condliffe Apr 23

Killer whales swim three thousand miles just to lose their skin

Every so often, the killer whales that live around Antarctica will drop everything they’re doing and swim three thousand miles due north. It’s an extreme journey, but the end result is the whale equivalent of a day at the spa. Killer whales, otherwise known as orcas, need to periodically regenerate their skin in order to…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Oct 26

What’s More Fun Than the Fail Whale? This Dinky Whale Speaker

How cute is this little-widdle whale speaker? It wraps around iPhones, and plugs right into the audio jack with its trusty 3.5mm jack. Unfortunately he’s native to the Korean waters, but hopefully he’ll swim over to the US where he’ll sell for around $30. [EarlyAdopterShop via Technabob]

Tech News Kat Hannaford Aug 19

Orca Ears Inspire Researchers To Build Pea-Sized Underwater Microphones

If you want to make the best equipment to listen to underwater sounds, where should you look? Most people would point you to the sales department of a high-end audio company, but a group of Stanford researchers are looking to Orca whales for their inspiration. Orca whales have ears that can sense a wide range…

Tech News Kelly Jun 30

Connecticut City Shuts Down Fountain When it Becomes a Public Latrine

The city of New London, Connecticut a problem with public urination. The problem is so bad the city has shut down its showcase Whale Tail fountain due to health concerns. You see, New London is an old whaling city that honored its heritage with a lovely whale-themed fountain. The fountain showered water down on anyone…

Tech News Kelly Jun 7

Popular whale songs reveal the first ever non-human cultural exchange

The haunting songs produced by whales are shockingly similar to human pop music: one single hit tune spreads across the ocean, and becomes the preferred whale mating tune. And, just like the modern music industry, it all runs on remixes. Humpback whales are one of a number of whale species that produce these beautiful, mysterious…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Apr 14

The Story of the Lonely Whale Will Break Your Heart

Once upon a time, there was a whale called June. Or maybe her name is Margaret. Or Kate. We don’t really know. A few nitrogen-hearted scientists call her 52 Hertz just because she sings at a 51.75Hz frequency, but I will call her Alice. Alice isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all whales, Alice…

Tech News Jesus Diaz Feb 28

Increased rate of sunburn found . . . in whales

They’ve been hunted. They’ve been starved. They’ve been poisoned. Now, whales are being fried while they’re still in the ocean. Since 2007, research teams have been following whales around the ocean and shooting them with darts. The researchers retrieved skin samples from the darts, performed biopsies, and tallied up the number of sun-damaged cells in…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 10

“Wanted” Director Hunts a Superpowered White Whale

Timur Bekmambetov will be revisiting superpowered assassins with his sequel to Wanted, but he’s already looking to his next project, a contemporary adaptation of Moby Dick. But this being Bekmambetov, his whales and whale hunters will have their own superpowers. Universal Pictures bought Bekmambetov’s reimagining of Herman Melville’s classic last fall, and the director promised…

io9 Lauren Davis Aug 10

How Whale Songs Can Help Us Explore the Ocean

Gray Whales Off Baja California Are Dying En Masse, and Scientists Don’t Know Why

Here’s How Much Bubble Wrap You Need To Wrap A Giant Whale Heart

Giant Sea Monster Washes On Shore Because World Is Ending

17th Century Seascape Contains a Secret Portrait of a Beached Whale

Scuba diver almost gets swallowed by 49-foot whale

Take The Northbound Whale Bus Uptown

Friendly wild whale goes to fisherman and says hi waving her fin

I can’t stop watching this whale explode

Oh, how nice: a hyperrealistic life-sized sculpture of a beached whale

An eye the size of a softball has washed ashore in Florida

This Is the World’s First Adult White Killer Whale

Killer whales swim three thousand miles just to lose their skin

What’s More Fun Than the Fail Whale? This Dinky Whale Speaker

Orca Ears Inspire Researchers To Build Pea-Sized Underwater Microphones

Connecticut City Shuts Down Fountain When it Becomes a Public Latrine

Popular whale songs reveal the first ever non-human cultural exchange

The Story of the Lonely Whale Will Break Your Heart

Increased rate of sunburn found . . . in whales

“Wanted” Director Hunts a Superpowered White Whale

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