Boring: July 2008 Archives

Titling a science article something like "Human Speech Traced to Talking Fish" naturally leads to certain expectations. But because science is really fucking boring, such expectations are usually dashed against the rocks pretty quickly. In this case, "talking" apparently means that::

After building a nest for his potential partner, the male midshipman fish calls to nearby females by contracting his swim bladder, the air-filled sac fish use to maintain buoyancy. The sound is a hum, something like a long-winded foghorn. Female midshipman dig it, and they only approach a male's nest if he makes this call.

This, needless to say, is shite. We all knew already that various lesser critters could make noises of many kinds.  An ant once crawled into your humble author's ear and it made a lot of noises--possibly involving a swim bladder--but it would be a stretch to call these noises "talking".