The title of the original article [1] is a lot more clear:
Buoyancy regulation through modulation of onboard gas volume by resting sperm whales
They don't "blow bubbles" to sleep vertically, they vent gas to regulate their specific gravity. This allows them to sleep vertically below the surface. The scientists measured the gas release by listening for bubbles, but they did a lot more: they actually modeled the buoyancy of whales and compared it with data.
If you've done any scuba diving (or swimming) you're familiar with this method of buoyancy control. And most fish accomplish on actively transporting gas between an internal bladder and their blood.
The difference is that whales have no way to refill their lungs while submerged, which is why their dives start deep and slowly drift up: as long as they are drifting upward the volume in their lungs is expanding in response to decreasing pressure. So the bubbles are essentially a way of pumping the breaks, which is apparently something they can do in their sleep (if they are in fact sleeping).
Is anyone else slightly annoyed by the cutesy title? Of course I recognize that the meme economy runs on this stuff, so maybe it's just nerds like me.
> It is particularly fascinating they are able to make these fine-scale adjustments while they are thought to be asleep, a challenge totally alien to terrestrial mammals like us humans.
While fascinating it’s not surprising. The vegetative nervous system does a LOT of things on autopilot. I think most people have no idea how many things their body regulates permanently that are actually technically difficult (orientation is particularly hard) and the lower brain stems just wing it.
For me this is a classic case of associating intelligence only with conscious awareness when there’s many other ways how we (and other animals) are “clever” even if we don’t know it at first ;)
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[ 393 ms ] story [ 2658 ms ] threadBut seriously, this must happen sometimes!
If you've done any scuba diving (or swimming) you're familiar with this method of buoyancy control. And most fish accomplish on actively transporting gas between an internal bladder and their blood.
The difference is that whales have no way to refill their lungs while submerged, which is why their dives start deep and slowly drift up: as long as they are drifting upward the volume in their lungs is expanding in response to decreasing pressure. So the bubbles are essentially a way of pumping the breaks, which is apparently something they can do in their sleep (if they are in fact sleeping).
Is anyone else slightly annoyed by the cutesy title? Of course I recognize that the meme economy runs on this stuff, so maybe it's just nerds like me.
[1]: https://dmscdn.vuelio.co.uk/publicitem/61eae467-9527-4922-b9...
I like that.
I mean, we know that mammals with a big brain dream. People can see that when e. g. their dog suddenly seems to run while sleeping.
While fascinating it’s not surprising. The vegetative nervous system does a LOT of things on autopilot. I think most people have no idea how many things their body regulates permanently that are actually technically difficult (orientation is particularly hard) and the lower brain stems just wing it.
For me this is a classic case of associating intelligence only with conscious awareness when there’s many other ways how we (and other animals) are “clever” even if we don’t know it at first ;)