Efforts underway to establish communication with dolphins

Efforts are going on to create communication between man and dolphin. Sounds incredible, but true. These experiments are underway in Florida. According to this experiment, a computer will translate the sounds made by dolphins and sends back the reply in a short span of time. In case if this experiment turns fruitful, then people can have fun talking to dolphins.

talk with a dolphin via underwater translation mac

The idea of creating communication with dolphins is not a new one. In fact this was the idea of Louis Herman of Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory in Honolulu of Hawaii since 199o. He had noted that bottle nose dolphins can remember as many as 100 different words and can respond accurately.

Unlike all other experiments that are one way, the current experiment, which is going on off the Florida Coast is trying to create two-way communication. Talking about the same, Denise Herzing, founder of Wild Dolphin Project in Jupiter of Florida says:

They create a system and expect the dolphins to learn it, and they do, but the dolphins are not empowered to use the system to request things from the humans.

Herzing and her colleagues, who have been trying to create two way communications between humans and dolphins, have initially used rudimentary artificial sounds followed by association of these sounds with four large icon on an underwater keyboard in 1998. This system was able to grab the attention of dolphins but was not dolphin-friendly. Eventually, the experiment ended up unsuccessful.

Now, in the latest experiment, the team is preparing a prototype kind of device that a smart phone sized computer fixed in it and two hydrophones to capture the dolphin sounds. It may be noted that dophins produce sound at frequencies of 200 Khz and recording them is not a cakewalk. This device will be carried by the diver and an LED screen will be installed on diver’s mask. Let us hope that this experiment would be successful.

Source: New Scientist