NOAA Identifies Mystery Noise as Minke Whale

Anonymous Cowherd writes "An underwater noise that has long confounded Navy sonar operators turned out to be a call of the minke whale, the Sacramento Bee reports. Scientists at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego made the discovery this fall when they heard the noise during a research expedition and saw a minke whale surfacing. While the story mentions minkes in the North Pacific, here's a sample from an Atlantic minke."

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In other other news

[JabberWokky]

Whale researchers have found what the source of their extensive net of microphones is. These microphones have allowed them to track and listen in on all whale species at various depths in various oceans. The source was unknown until paperwork surfaced recently showing that the US Navy dontated the entire system to whale researchers.

Re:In other other other other other news

[gi-tux]

You call Pearl Harbor unsuccessful? I thought that the Japanese did a pretty good number on us there. It took six months of hard work to get ready to move against them again, and if the carriers had been in port, we would have been in even worse shape.

There has been an invasion of the U.S. since 1812. In 1911, IIRC, Pancho Villa invaded Texas from Mexico. Many people forget about this, but Americans died when he did that. Unfortunately, the Navy doesn't have much of a presence on the Rio Grande. However, the U.S. Army did chase him out of the country and Black Jack Pershing got a little training that helped in WWI.

We would probably be in much worse shape as a country, if we didn't have such a well trained, well supplied military. If you think that folks like Hitler, Stalin, Hussien, etc. wouldn't already be over here, then you are crazy. It was thinking like that that allowed WWI and WWII to get so out of hand before we got into them. People that thought that the ocean was enough to keep those guys out. Well, those oceans are easier to cross today than they were over a half century ago and the next series of bad guys won't think twice about coming over here, if our armed forces aren't ready for them.

And on top of that, in our consumer based country, the trade channels of the ocean are necessary to us. Without the supplies coming in from the orient, we would be hurting very soon. Without a Navy to protect those channels, it wouldn't be long before they were in danger. Look at history, there were the barbary priates that caused problems until the Navy took care of them. It was the Navy that blockaded the CSA and essentially choked the south during the War of Northern Agression (or American Civil War, yes I am a southerner). It was the Navy that defeated the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay. The Navy defeated the Japanese Navy during WWII which kept the Japanese Army from resuppliing their forces.

Call me a war hawk if you like. But I am a strong believer in a well prepared military and a well armed nation. These two things are what will keep the U.S. free and at peace most of the time.