Summer Reading, cont.
No, this isn’t a post about beached financial whales like Citigroup, AIG, and Fannie Mae, which all ended up bloated and marooned when the financial tide went out.
It’s about real whales.
Apparently, scientists have zeroed in on the cause of mass whale strandings: nearby sonar and/or seismic tests. The noise-sensitive whales are literally trying to jump out of the water to get away from the man-made sounds invading their environment:
It might sound like something out of a bad sci-fi film: whales sent into suicidal dashes toward the ocean’s surface to escape the madness-inducing echo chamber that we humans have made of their sound-sensitive habitat.
–Charles Siebert, “Watching Whales Watching Us“; The NY Times (7/12/09)
The proof?
Necropsies of dead whales showing tissue damage consistent with “the bends,” a malady associate with surfacing too fast.
Amazing . . .
