Scientists Study The Scream Of The Squirrel

SimianOverlord writes "The BBC details a recent breakthrough in Squirrel to Man understanding. Scientist James Hare, in his study of the North American Ground Squirrel, noted peculiar behaviour; they appeared to 'lose their voice' while communicating, producing only a 'breathy whisper' in sound ranges audible to the human ear. On a hunch, the intrepid boffin borrowed a 'bat detector', which translates inaudible ultrasound into the human hearing range, and discovered the Squirrels were using a whole range of distinct ultrasound messages which can give gradated threat warnings or be targetted to family members, all without any predators detecting the message, or easily pinpointing the location of the caller. Though it has been known for some time rodents use ultrasound, this is believed to be the first time that it has a proven purpose, and the content of the messages have been deciphered."

Comments

Re:Nice to know such important research happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think that doing research in one area detracts from research in another?

Using your logic, we should be mad at you for spending time on Slashdot instead of using that time researching "molecular manufacturing, or stem cells, or space flight".

Get on it, you lazy bum!

Or vice-versa...

[R2.0]

You realize that if this post was about research into asteroid mining, your alter ego would be saying "Why are we spending money on something so pointless when we could be trying to better understand the ecosystem where we live right now?"

It all depends on whose ox is gored.