Starship Asterisk*

I was so touched when I read this. A white whale, called NOC, which had been kept in captivity for 30 years, was found to have learnt to imitate human sound patterns. These are quite different from normal whale sounds, and according to Sam Ridgway of the National Marine Mammal Foundation, the whale had to make a very conscious effort to produce such sounds. Ridgway said,

"Such obvious effort suggests motivation for contact."

Isn't it almost heartbreaking? The whale, kept in captivity by humans, may have tried to communicate with us. No human apparently made the same effort to communicate with the whale.

If we don't get it when a whale is trying to talk to us, how are we going to be able to pick up attempts of communication by E.T.?

Ann

how old was the whale when it was captivated?

Neufer, thanks for the video! The singing whale swallowed three opera singers, now that's an explanation

Very, very interesting topic

It does sound like a human voice

http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pu ... rom=224114

. http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/ ... /#49579010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_birdrs wrote:
<<Talking birds are birds that can mimic human speech. Talking birds have varying degrees of intelligence and communication capabilities: some, like the crow, a highly intelligent bird, are able to mimic only few words and phrases, whilst some budgerigars have been observed to have a vocabulary of almost two thousand words. The Hill Myna is a commonly kept pet, well known for its talking ability – whilst its relative, the European Starling, is also adept at mimicry. Wild cockatoos in Australia have been reported to have learned human speech from ex-captive birds that have integrated into the flock.>>

Fascinating, Art!

I have read somewhere that birds that can imitate human speech are usually the kind of birds that form strong bonds with one individual of its own species and stay in this "monogamous" relationship. If such a bird is kept in captivity, it may form a strong bond with its owner. If the bird belongs to a family, it may pick one family member as its favorite and consider this person its "partner".

In the wild, some birds that form strong partnerships with one individual of the opposite sex often create a "language" where the two birds imitate one another. They may form "speech patterns" that are unique thanks to this tendency to imitate.

If a bird of this kind considers a human being its partner, it may try to imitate this person. If the owner spends a long time with the bird, encouraging it to repeat words and phrases, some birds may become quite adept.

Ann

Yesterday, my computer failure
I had to re program all ( I¨m not expert )
For 2 hours I felt like a whale trying to communicate with humans
or as astronauts flying back to the Moon
0 communication with Earth. Uuuuuuffffff