52-hertz whale

(en.wikipedia.org)

126 points by brightbeige 3 days ago|19 comments

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dang 2 days ago

Related. Others?

52-Hertz Whale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40702767 - June 2024 (10 comments)

52-Hertz Whale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27787411 - July 2021 (1 comment)

52-hertz whale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17477087 - July 2018 (34 comments)

52-hertz whale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11185764 - Feb 2016 (89 comments)

52 Hz whale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9116161 - Feb 2015 (1 comment)

52 Hertz: The Loneliest Whale in the World - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531563 - Sept 2012 (57 comments)

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MisterTea 2 days ago

The serendipitous part of this article is the mention of Collin Stetson in the music section. I met Collin when he was living in NYC around the early 00's, bar tending at a place in Williamsburg I frequented. Really nice guy who introduced me to interesting music like Mr Bungle, a band Mike Patton of Faith No More started before FNM (And I knew FNM.) I saw Collin perform at a small venue once too. Very impressive how he played the giant contrabass sax. I'm happy to see Collin built a musical career and earned a Wikipedia page.

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1970-01-01 2 days ago

Sounds like (hah) this is a job for cheap sea drones. Spread them out and have them listen and triangulate the location, and then go there with a human team.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_surface_vehicle#Ocean...

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dredmorbius 2 days ago

There's at least one company, Saildrone, operating out of Alameda, CA (SF Bay Area and one endpoint of the famed Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9958407>), which might be suited to that. Its 23--65-foot sail-driven, solar-powered drones are tasked with anti-submarine warfare (most likely largely acoustic detection, so well-suited to cetacean observation, which is how whalesong was discovered in the first place), operate autonomously, over wide-ranging areas of ocean, for long periods.

They're mentioned in your link, some additional references:

<https://www.saildrone.com/>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saildrone_(company)>

Earlier HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16242380> (2018, 5 comments).

I've mentioned the firm a few times: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>

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Shalomboy 2 days ago

The cool thing about cheap sea drones is that they are still incredibly expensive to operate. Like, the only cost center they remove is the crew which is negligible compared to fuel, transport, and equipment.

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dredmorbius 2 days ago

The ones 1970-01-01 mentions are sail-driven and solar-powered. They can operate autonomously over wide-ranging areas for years.

Saildrone have produced at least 24 vessels: 20 in the Gulf of Mexico, four in the Baltic, and possibly others. There's a tender of $37 million with the US Coast Guard, and a market of $412 million as of 2024. This suggests a unit price on the order of about $10,000, which is downright cheap for any seaworthy craft.

"Exclusive: Saildrone Scores $37M BPA with USCG" <https://www.tectonicdefense.com/exclusive-saildrone-scores-3...>

"Saildrone Surveyor USV Market Research Report 2033" (2024) <https://growthmarketreports.com/report/saildrone-surveyor-us...>

My estimate may well be low. Ukraine's SeaBaby drone boats are reported to cost ~$250,000:

"Sea drones: What are they and how much do they cost?" (2023) <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66373052>

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caycep 2 days ago

although, just because we can, is it something we should?

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zamadatix 2 days ago

It'd be marine animal research as much as most other - I guess the answer is just the same as how much priority one normally ties to that for one's given reasoning.

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booi 2 days ago

yah what happened to leaving it the f alone?

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_doctor_love 2 days ago

The loneliness aspect of the whale tugs at my heartstrings. I know I am most likely romanticizing and anthropomorphizing nature, but still.

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cortesoft 2 days ago

Hopefully it is accepted by the other whales, even if it communicates in a different frequency. My quick research shows that blue whales can hear much higher frequencies, all the way up to about 18,000 hz, so it isn't like the other whales can't hear this one.

Hopefully the whale is accepted and communicated with, and the other whales just know them as "the one with the higher pitched voice"

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too_pricey 2 days ago

I get it. Reminds me of the [last song] (https://youtu.be/nDRY0CmcYNU?is=2G47ZpdH3rSk_j3P) of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō.

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rkagerer 2 days ago

But it may not be the only one!

> recordings of a second 52-hertz whale, heard elsewhere at the same time, have been sporadically found since 2010.

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pragma_x 2 days ago

Same here. This part got me:

> The whale itself has never been sighted: it has only been heard via hydrophones, but its call has been detected since the late 1980s in a pattern that matches the migration of the blue whale and the fin whale. Those species call at 10 to 39 Hz and 20 Hz respectively.

So not only lonely, but sings in a falsetto by whale standards; a weirdo. A lonely fellow with a distinctly high-pitched voice.

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ErroneousBosh 22 hours ago

> The whale itself has never been sighted: it has only been heard via hydrophones,

How do we know it's a whale, then?

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1970-01-01 2 days ago

Whales have the biggest brains on the entire planet. Scientifically proven they have feelings. You're doing it right.

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nkrisc 2 days ago

I've only read the linked Wikipedia article, but is there any evidence that calling at this frequency somehow impedes communication with other whales? I don't know very much about how whales communicate and socialize.

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bmitc 2 days ago

> anthropomorphizing nature

Whales are much more deeply connected emotionally to one another than we will ever be. And some species are probably as smart as we are.

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wheelandarch 2 days ago

Wine 11.1

[1]:https://www.winehq.org/