Cetacean intelligence – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dolphins are known to engage in complex play behaviour, which includes such things as producing stable underwater toroidal air-core vortex rings or “bubble rings”. There are two main methods of bubble ring production: rapid puffing of a burst of air into the water and allowing it to rise to the surface, forming a ring; or swimming repeatedly in a circle and then stopping to inject air into the helical vortex currents thus formed. The dolphin will often then examine its creation visually and with sonar. They also appear to enjoy biting the vortex-rings they’ve created, so that they burst into many separate normal bubbles and then rise quickly to the surface. Certain whales are also known to produce bubble rings, or even bubble-nets for the purpose of foraging. Many dolphin species are also known for playing by riding in waves, whether natural waves near the shoreline in a method akin to human “body-surfing”, or within the waves induced by the bow of a moving boat in a behavior known as bow-riding.
The wikipedia article about the intelligence of dolphins and whales is a fascinating read. While sleeping, dolphins appear to rest only one side of the brain at a time. This is sometimes given as an explanation to their exceptionally large brain size. Their brains (1500-1700 grams) are actually heavier than human brains (1300-1400 grams) and the wrinkles in them are of near equivalent complexity.
I’ve seen dolphins underwater once near the Eilat Dolphin Reed in the Red Sea. One of them came all the way to a nearby sandy tourist beach obviously seeking human contact for his or her amusement only. A delighted child ran to the dolphin and whatever they were doing, it was most obviously some sort of playful social interaction for both parties.
Here’s another interesting experiment that is being conducted on captive dolphins:
More recently, researchers at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii have been testing dolphins through an underwater touchscreen attached to a computer. There are no food rewards, so the dolphins use the touchscreen solely for intellectual stimulation. The scientists found that the dolphins weren’t particularly interested in abstractions, such as geometric patterns or artificial sounds. But they were very excited about touching the screen if it resulted in their seeing videos of other dolphins or hearing dolphin sounds. The next step will be to let dolphins choose video or audio sequences and then try to analyze why they’re making those decisions.
I can confirm this behaviour in humans as well. Even without any experiments, I know that people are much more interested in seeing other people and hearing human sounds compared to seeing geometric patterns or artificial sounds.
Posted by api at 20:50 - No Comments »
As a follow-up to the article below about “low” and “high” culture, I decided to write a few words about the relationship between fashion and art. I visited the Espoo Museum of Modern Art last Sunday. The main reason for the visit was the Claude Monet exhibition which is on show over there, but I did take a good, long look at some of the more contemporary stuff that was on show over there. Although some of it was thought-provoking and interesting, I sometimes can’t help but wonder if some of the most creative people are not working as artists after all. There is a huge amount of creativity and depth in modern advertising landscape. Diesel is one of the big brands that has a long tradition of mixing art and fashion in their advertising, but after seeing a blog post about this Viktor & Rolf store in Milan, one can hardly blame them for lack of courage either. Sure, it’s a gimmick, but you have to give them props for actually building that space with that degree of accuracy and commitment. But.. just to put my personal view of art in perspective and for the record, I thought that the Borat movie was a great piece of concept art as well.
Posted by api at 14:37 - 1 Comment »
Palast der Republik
Construction
The Palast was constructed from 1973 to 1976 in the prevailing architectural style for East German buildings, with bronze mirrored windows. The grand opening ceremony was held on 23 April 1976, and the building was opened to the public on 25 April 1976. It was built on the site of the old Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace), which was damaged during World War II but finally demolished by the GDR authorities in 1950, as they regarded it a symbol of Prussian imperialism. It was sometimes nicknamed “Ballast der Republik” (“Ballast of the Republic”), “Erichs Lampenladen” (“Erich’s Lamp Shop”, referring to Erich Honecker and the 1001 lamps hanging in the foyer), or “Palazzo Prozzo.”
Demolition
In November 2003, the German parliament decided to demolish the building and leave the area as parkland until funding for the reconstruction of the Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace) could be found. Demolition started on February 6, 2006 and was scheduled to last about 15 months. The demolition was to be carried out as a careful and slow process in order not to endanger neighbouring historical buildings such as the Berliner Dom. The cost of the demolition was estimated at 12 million euro. Dismantling of the structure was seriously delayed after more asbestos was found in various locations, and the estimated completion date was pushed back to the end of 2008.
New Music House in Helsinki
In addition to the appointment of a new DG for the public broadcaster, the Administrative Council of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) also voted 15-5 in favour of the company’s participation in the Music Centre planned for downtown Helsinki. The project has an estimated price-tag of around EUR 112 million, of which YLE is expected to find 26%. The remainder of the money will come from the state and from the City of Helsinki, but it was widely acknowledged that had the broadcaster opted out of the venture it would not have got off the ground.
The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra will make its home in the building, hopefully relieving the musicians from the acoustic doldrums of Alvar Aalto’s lovely but musically-unsuitable Finlandia Hall. The new music complex will also become home to the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Both ensembles will undoubtedly welcome the change.
The building will be completed by 2008 or 2009 at the earliest and will occupy a prime location in the centre of Helsinki, opposite Parliament and on the site of the former railway freight warehouses dating back to the Tsarist period.
In an ironic twist, Eastern european workers also laid the foundation for the new Music House at a less than 2 euro hourly wage. In an epic battle between “high” and “low” culture, the Music House is being erected in midst of great controversy regarding it’s appearance, purpose, financing and location.
I agree that Helsinki needs a acoustically worthy venue for classical music, but trying to wrap this whole thing under the generic term “Music House” is almost an insult to the wealth of other music styles that do not necessarily resonate well within this 1970’s style structure.
Now that the budget is being cut even further down from the estimate mentioned above, I find it almost impossible to believe that the acoustical design of the building will overcome the difficulties that the nearby heavy tram and car traffic present.
In my opinion, this spitting image of Palast der Republik is overpriced, overhyped and an overkill. If the gargantuan “Central Library” will be built next to it, the whole Töölönlahti area will become a sad monument to the idea that culture can be created and maintained by building huge cubes with the proper titles to accompany them.
Posted by api at 08:30 - No Comments »
Modern Plasztikai Sebészet
The philosophy and technics of the operative procedure was developed only a few years ago, but our experiences on more than one thousand ears revealed the fact, that the operation is safe and well-tolerated by patients. We perform the operation as a one-day-surgery, mostly under local anaesthesia.
The procedure itself means a very careful dissection of the structures at the upper pole of the earlobe. The required reshaping is achieved by modellation of a specially designed chondro-cutaneous flap (a flap containing the own cartilage and skin of the patient). The new shape is fixed by means of absorbable sutures, skin closure is made with unabsorbable uninterrupted sutures.
Postoperative care is very important. The bandage protects the new ear for one week. Suture removal is performed after the second postoperative week. The result is seen immediately after the removal of the bandage, but total resoption of the soft tissue swelling and appearance of the very final shape usually needs three or four weeks.
I’ll be participating in a LARP conference this weekend. Upon researching the subject I found out that some people have actually commissioned pointy elf-style ears as a cosmetic surgery. This is a totally novel and exciting genre of body modification.
(Update December 16th, 2009: As J pointed out, this image is indeed a digital manipulation. The clinic seemed authentic enough so I didn’t notice it myself.)
My own personal experiences with larping are limited to a few games of Steve Jackson’s Killer in the 1980’s. At the kick-off party I learned that there are still groups actively playing it.
Posted by api at 18:57 - 8 Comments »
