A Device to Let Dolphins Speak in the Air
A method to enable a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) to echolocate while out of water
In theory, this would allow them to use their “click” language to “speak” to humans standing outside the water.
That’s not what it was developed for, exactly. The immediate goals of the scientist were much more modest. It’s hard to study dolphin echolocation precisely in their natural environment, so the team wanted to be able to measure echolocation clicks out of the water.
They set up a Death Star for the dolphins to target with their clicks. Because of course they did.
What they found is that there was a regular corellation between the aerial “echos” of the clicks that they measured and the clicks underwater, making this system viable for measuring dolphin echolocation.
Does this bring us one step closer to a Startide Rising scenario, as in David Brin’s Uplift series, where we can communicate with dolphins? We can only hope...
Naturally, I’m going to have dolphins in my Seastead Adventures series. The sequel to The Seastead Girl will be The Pink Dolphin. I haven’t decided how well humans and dolphins will be able to communicate in this book. I want to keep it near future hard science fiction, and I also want to have... well, talking dolphins.
Because... talking dolphins.
You can click here to read the first book in the Seastead series.
Comments