by Lewis, Dan
Yes, that’s right: on the urgency of Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev donned a pair of swimmies—and, a bit more than coincidentally, the two nations’ relations were never quite the same.
BONUS FACT
Russia’s Vladimir Putin has a reputation for pulling the same sort of stunts as Mao did. In 2006, Putin hosted Germany’s Angela Merkel in Moscow for some high-profile negotiations. Also attending were Putin’s pet dogs—which were likely invited to give the Russians an upper hand at the table. As Foreign Policy reported, Merkel isn’t fond of dogs—she was bitten by one as a young child and has avoided them since.
SWIMMING ALONE
THE WHALE WHO HAS NO FRIENDS TO TALK TO
Whales—particularly humpback whales—speak. Their language is not an articulate mix of sounds like the ones we humans make, but some whales, such as the aforementioned humpbacks, make sounds akin to singing. It is widely believed by the relevant scientific communities that these sounds are how members of these species communicate with one another.
Which is why a whale dubbed the 52-hertz whale is, forever, alone.
Most whale sounds occur in the 15- to 25-hertz frequency range. But the 52-hertz whale uniquely (as far as we know) creates a sound at a much higher frequency. Unfortunately for the 52-hertz whale, this massive difference in frequency means that it cannot communicate with the other whales in the ocean.
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have been tracking the whale since detecting its strange noise in 1992 using hydrophones, a series of underwater listening devices originally used to track submarine movements. When the team discovered the whale, its members were surprised, to say the least. As reported by the New York Times, “its sonic signature is clearly that of a whale, but nothing like the normal voice of the giant blue or the next biggest species, the fin, or any other whale for that matter”; so says a WHOI marine biologist studying the whale. Further, the WHOI team believes that the whale is in otherwise good health, noting that it would be extremely unlikely that a creature with compromised health could live in solitude for over a dozen years—as the 52-hertz whale has.
Its life of solitude is manifested also in its odd migratory pattern. The 52-hertz whale typically travels up and down the Pacific coast of Mexico, the United States, and Canada, venturing into the Gulf of Alaska but not venturing farther north. According to the Alaska Dispatch, the gray whale migrates in a similar path, but ventures much farther north to feed; the 52-hertz whale never reaches that feeding ground and is therefore not likely part of that pack. As of January 2012, it was last detected south of Alaska, alone, as usual.
In fact, we don’t know what species of whale the 52-hertz is. While some believe it is a species in and of itself—perhaps the last whale of its kind—WHOI believes that is not the case. Rather, the cetologists of WHOI believe it is simply a strange, unique humpback whale.
BONUS FACT
The blue whale is the world’s largest animal. It is so large that its tongue alone weighs about three tons (or about 2,700 kilograms). For comparison’s sake, the largest land animal, the African bush elephant—the whole thing, not just the tongue—weighs about six tons.
DOWN BY THE BAY
THE STRANGE EFFECT 9/11 HAD ON THE WHALE POPULATION
Canada’s Bay of Fundy is located on the East Coast of North America, tucked between Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. It’s a common home to a number of ships and active ports, at least on a typical day. But September 11, 2001, was not a typical day. The attacks on the United States brought sea traffic throughout the region to a crawl as authorities rushed to ensure the safety of ships, their passengers, and their cargo. That slowdown lasted a couple of days and unintentionally created unique conditions for scientific inquiry.
For example, it helped researchers discover that whales were really stressed out.
The Bay of Fundy is a seasonal feeding ground for a few species of whales, whose populations spike in the summer and into the early fall. As a relatively enclosed body of water, the Bay of Fundy lends itself well to the study of these creatures. In September 2001, two teams of researchers were independently conducting whale-focused experiments in the area. One was collecting recordings of whale songs, to learn more about how whales communicate. The other was collecting whale feces, which, while gross, can be used to tell us more about whale diet and nutrition by measuring various hormone levels found within the stool samples. (The things we do in furtherance of science.)
Nearly a decade after 9/11, a group led by scientists from the New England Aquarium in Boston noticed that these two experiments provided a rare opportunity. For years, as the New York Times reported, we’ve known that whales “communicate with acoustic signals at low frequency, the range of many noises from ships” and that “whales move off, reduce their own calls and otherwise respond to ship noise.” Some researchers believed that whales were moving away because ship noise caused them stress, but there was no good way to test this theory. Incredibly, the 9/11 data provided a rare insight into the question.
When whales get stressed, they release a hormone that, ultimately, they excrete in their feces. Because researchers were collecting the poop on 9/11 and the days previous and subsequent, the science community had data on the relative stress levels of the Bay of Fundy whales during that time. What it shows is that the whales were pretty relaxed on the days after the attack—or, at least, more relaxed than they were in the days prior.
From the same time period, we also have data measuring the amount of low-frequency acoustic signals in the Bay that week—again, from before and after 9/11. We already knew that ship traffic came to a near-halt, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the amount of underwater noise also dropped dramatically. One could say that it was, relatively speaking, rather peaceful if you were a whale.
Whether the whales’ stress levels are important, though, is harder to determine. Since the conditions of this experiment were accidental, researchers can’t repeat the tests. One of the researchers pointed out, in the words of the Associated Press, that it is “unclear how much chronic stress from noise the whales can take before the population is affected, largely because it’s impossible to conduct controlled experiments on fifty-ton animals.” So for now, we’ll likely keep stressing out the whales.
BONUS FACT
Life as a college student can be stressful, too, especially around finals. A few schools have found a cute solution—puppies. The schools bring in trained therapy animals to take some of the edge off.
ENJOY THE SILENCE
HOW YOUR CELL PHONE MAKES YOU HAPPIER BY LYING TO YOU
You’re on your cell phone, talking about something or other. Suddenly, you realize that the other person is strangely quiet—too quiet. “Still there?” you ask the void, hopelessly, as you already know the answer. The other person didn’t just stop talking. Your call has been disconnected.
Again, you knew that already. But how did you know that?
The answer: your cell phone provider tricks you. (In a good way, though.)
When we have real, in-person conversations, it is rarely, if ever, in a place of true silence. Perhaps an air conditioner is running or birds are chirping or someone is rustling papers quietly at his or her desk. These tiny background sounds aren’t interrupting your conversations, though. Subconsciously, we anticipate them (this is often, in aggregate, called “white noise”), and they act as a signal to our brains that all’s normal. However, communications that aren’t in person—cell phones and radio, especially—don’t have this white noise. Sure, there are the background sounds in the area in which we’re standing or sitting, but when the speaker is in another area, that doesn’t do us much good.
So we fake it. Or, rather, the cell phone companies do, by adding what is called “comfort noise.” Wikipedia defines it as “synthetic background noise used in radio and wireless communications to fill the artificial silence.” It’s not the easiest thing to provide. All the sounds we hear on o
ur cell phones are just data bits being translated into sound, and transmitting that data takes up bandwidth. This is true for real conversations and comfort noise alike, so many companies are in the business of optimizing this useful static.
And no, eliminating comfort noise isn’t an option; that would lead to a surprising number of “hello?”s and “you there?”s. According to one provider of comfort noise, “most conversations include about 50 percent silence.”
BONUS FACT
Radio was an incredibly important form of mass communication during World War II. For example, before and after air raids, the city of Leningrad broadcast instructions to take cover, and later would issue the all-clear, over a municipal radio service. That radio system reached most of the city; it had about half a million households and businesses with speakers, and another 10–20,000 loudspeakers on the street. What if the Germans bombed the transmitters? How would the people of Leningrad know? To account for this, the city radio employed an early version of comfort noise, softly broadcasting the sound of a metronome when no announcements were being made.
FEELING BUZZED
WHY WE THINK OUR PHONES ARE VIBRATING—EVEN THOUGH THEY AREN’T
You’re sitting at your desk, standing in the kitchen, watching TV, etc. All of a sudden, your cell phone vibrates, informing you that you have a new text message, phone call, or e-mail. You reach into your pocket and check, only to find no such message—and perhaps you discover that your phone is not even in your pocket. The vibration felt real, but what caused it? Evidently, not your cell phone.
If this has happened to you, rest assured you are not alone.
In 2010, a team of researchers from Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, asked 232 of their colleagues to answer a questionnaire about phantom vibrations from their cell phones (or, more correctly, from the area where their cell phones usually are). Of the 176 who responded, 115—69 percent—stated that yes, they experienced the disconcerting fake alerts like those just described. The researchers’ plain-as-day conclusion: “Phantom-vibration syndrome is common among those who use electronic devices.”
What causes it? There are a lot of theories. Discovery News suggested that “[it] could be because cell phones produce electrical signals that transmit the feeling of vibration directly to a person’s nerves or simply because of the mental anticipation of alerts.” Mental Floss explains one way this might work, likening it to “a physical stimulation similar to what happens when your phone is near a speaker and you hear that weird buzzing sound as it does a ‘hand shake’ with a cell tower and gives off some electromagnetic interference.” The anticipation is not dissimilar from any other sort of psychological conditioning—we are so used to our phones vibrating that our brains make it feel like it is happening when we expect it, not when it actually does.
There’s some newer evidence suggesting that these false vibrations are all in our heads. In July 2012, researchers published a study on the phantom-vibration phenomenon after speaking with undergraduate students about the fake shakes. The majority of the students experienced the vibrations, but, as Slate magazine explains, the study found it happened more often to extroverts and neurotics:
Extroverts, the theory goes, check their phones a lot because keeping in touch with friends is a big part of their lives. Neurotics, meanwhile, worry a lot about the status of their relationships—so while they may not get as many text messages, they care a lot about what they say.
In any event, most researchers think that the fake vibrations are harmless (albeit annoying)—although there has been very little research into that.
BONUS FACT
The 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing is a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists who assert that the landing was faked and instead filmed on a sound stage. In September 2002, one such conspiracy theorist physically accosted the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin (whose mother’s maiden name was Moon!), demanding he swear upon a Bible (that the conspiracy theorist brought with him) that the landing was faked. Instead, Aldrin punched the guy. Authorities declined to press charges against Aldrin.
UN-SILENT PICTURES
CLICKING FOR SAFETY
Take out your cell phone and take a picture. If the sound is on, you may hear a shutter sound—something (if you’re old enough) reminiscent of the nondigital cameras of yesteryear. That sound is artificial, and likely included to bring the full camera-like experience to the digital world. With most phones, if you want to turn off the sound, you can. Apple’s iPhone 3G, for example, has no shutter sound if you put your phone in silent mode.
Except in Japan.
As the Apple-aficionado site Cult of Mac reported, the digital revolution led to a perverse de-evolution of proper public conduct among some Japanese. The new trend? “Upskirt” and “downblouse” photos of women, taken without their permission and often without their knowledge. To make this violation worse, the increasing popularity of social media means that a victim’s image could spread widely, potentially with enough context to identify the person depicted. The problem got so out of hand that most subway stations now have signs warning to “Watch out for upskirting.”
To help prevent this, the Japanese version of the iPhone 3G—and many subsequent models—kept the shutter sound even if a user set the phone to silent. While this wouldn’t stop the most brazen upskirt photogs, the hope was pretty clear. At the very least, it would draw attention to what they were doing.
So far, this requirement isn’t widespread outside Japan. However, in 2009, U.S. Congressman Peter King wanted to do the same thing in the United States, introducing a bill called the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, which, if enacted, would “require mobile phones containing digital cameras to make a sound when a photograph is taken.” The bill did not receive support from any other legislators and never became law.
But even if the bill were to have become law, it wouldn’t have mattered much, if Japan is any indicator. Those intent on taking such photos surreptitiously have found workarounds. For phones running Google’s Android operating system, there are apps that, according to the Daily Mail, override the system settings and mute the shutter sound. There’s an even easier work-around—for most phones, using a headset pushes all noise to the ear buds, effectively muzzling the sound.
BONUS FACT
In August 2010, Boston police set up a sting operation to catch a man who was reported to be taking upskirt photos in the city’s subway system. The case made its way to the highest court in Massachusetts, which, on March 5, 2014, ruled that the man wasn’t guilty of anything—the law only pertains to photographs taken of subjects who are at least “partially nude.” The court ruled that “a female passenger [. . .] who is wearing a skirt, dress, or the like covering these parts of her body is not a person who is ‘partially nude,’ no matter what is or is not underneath the skirt by way of underwear or other clothing.” If you think that’s ridiculous, you’re not alone—the Massachusetts government passed a revised version of the law two days later.
CHIKANNERY
THE UNDERGROUND WOMEN-ONLY CLUB
The Japanese term chikan means “street groping,” and the fact that there’s a specific term for such an act speaks volumes about the extent of the problem. This is especially true when it comes to the subway. According to the Guardian, locals dubbed Osaka’s railway the “Pervert Express,” while a 2001 survey of Tokyo high schoolers found that 70 percent of female students had been victims of at least one such assault on the trains in their area. Another survey, one conducted by the Tokyo police in conjunction with the East Japan Railway Company, found that two-thirds of women between the ages of twenty and forty had been groped at least once.
Over the past decade or two, officials have tried to change this, with stricter sentencing for those convicted of the crime and awareness campaigns to help bring the issue to light, but by and large, these have not been very successful. While awareness and enforcement efforts have led to an increased number of victims filing re
ports, many victims are embarrassed to come forward. The problem is still widely believed to be rampant if not entirely out of control.
One of the newer solutions? Segregated trains.
Specifically, many Japanese transit providers have taken to providing women-only train cars. These cars were first introduced in 2000, when a private railway that provides service from Tokyo to the suburbs tested the concept during late-night runs. Over the five or so years subsequent, most other railways adopted a similar option, finding the offering popular (which should surprise no one). Even a large percentage of men approve of the addition of these cars. As ABC News pointed out, crowded trains lead to potentially false accusations of chikan (or of victims wrongly accusing an innocent man of committing his neighbor’s indiscretion), and at a fine of around $500 and up to seven years in prison, that’s something best avoided.
Interestingly, there’s no fine or threat of incarceration if a man gets on a women-only car. Doing so isn’t illegal, according to Japan Today. The rule, to the extent that it truly is one, is enforced by shaming. In an odd sense, the same thing that keeps women from reporting chikan—embarrassment—keeps men from violating the commuting space of Japanese straphangers. The term “women only” is somewhat inaccurate as well, as young children, the disabled, and some other males are customarily allowed in the cars.
Regardless, the innovation has proven successful and has found a home in other transit systems throughout the world. India, Brazil, Mexico, and a handful of other places have female-only transit options, aiming to stem a similar problem to the one encapsulated by the term chikan.