Imagine the loneliness of speaking a language that only you can understand. Researchers have been studying a whale, who communicates in a language not recognizable by other whales. This whale has spent over two decades looking for a friend who will understand him.
Message To The Future
In 1914, Richard Platz, a 20-year-old son of a baker, was hiking when he threw a message in a bottle into the Baltic Sea. Little did he know that it would take over a century before anyone would read his message. Earlier this year, a fisherman named Konrad Fischer pulled the beer bottle out of the ocean.
Birdbrained
Birds aren’t usually the first animal that people think about when they think about smart animals. In English, calling someone birdbrained means that they are stupid. And saying something is ‘for the birds’ means that it’s trivial or worthless. However, these expressions couldn’t be more off base. Some birds, particularly crows, can be amazingly smart. In fact, their problem-solving abilities are as good as those of a seven-year-old child.
That Prairie Dog Thinks You’re Fat!
Has anyone ever told you, you could stand to lose some weight? Or maybe people have told you you’re as thin as a rail. Either way, it might not just be other people judging you on your looks. Prairie dogs have a complex language, and they are not only talking about people, but also calling them fat, skinny, tall, or short.
Secret Language of Plants
A famous book from the 70s called The Secret Life of Plants says that plants are conscious and even have a preference for music. In one research study, plants exposed to Mozart were healthier and grew faster than plants exposed to Jimi Hendrix. Some say these studies that claim plants have a taste for music are full of holes. But there is growing research on plant intelligence and plant communication.
The Man Who Accidentally Invented Hypnotism
Hypnosis is a form of direct communication with the unconscious mind. It is a valuable tool for raising self-awareness. It can also help people change negative patterns of behavior. It was accidentally invented by a man named Franz Anton Mesmer. Mesmer belongs to a small group of people who have a verb named after them. To ‘mesmerize’ means to capture the complete attention of someone. Mesmer spent a lifetime trying to do exactly that.
Mining Asteroids For Water
The Martians were giants with the strength of twenty men. When they attacked Earth, it looked like all was lost. The Martians were just too strong. Fortunately, their immune systems were not strong enough to fight off common earthly bacteria. Edison’s Conquest of Mars is a science fiction story written in 1898 by Garret Putman Serviss. The story starts as the war for Earth ends, and humans chase the aliens back to their home on Mars.
The Context of Culture
The difference between low and high context communication can perhaps be illustrated in the following example. Let’s say you meet someone for the very first time. You know nothing about each other, so you have to spend many hours talking and asking questions in order get to know each other. That’s pretty low context communication. But let’s say you’ve been married for 30 years. You don’t even need to talk in order to communicate. One look from across the room and you know exactly what your wife or husband is thinking, and nobody else can understand. That’s high context communication.