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Dolphin Jumps Again with Artificial Fin
Ant writes "This Yahoo! News story mentions Fuji, a mother dolphin that lost 75 percent of her tail due to a mysterious disease, being able to jump again with the help of what is believed to be the world's first artificial fin. The 34-year-old dolphin held at Japan's largest aquarium in the southern island of Okinawa wears the rubber fin for about 20 minutes a day allowing her to jump and to swim at the same speed of other dolphins."
If we don't stop the dolphins now we'll be overrun with evil cyborg dolphins
See your sig here
First Porpoise!
Not looking forward to artificial fin chunks in my Tuna sandwich
I expected that dolphin to be red with 'Marlboro', 'Shell' and 'Vodafone' painted on its other fins...
our bionic dolphin masters.
I hear they taste just like tuna...
I was confused by this statement in the article - " The breeders decided not to keep Fuji's fin on all day fearing that it may fall off and be eaten or destroyed by other dolphins." - I've read that sharks will eat just about anything, but do dolphins eat rubber?
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I wonder where we are in bio research, getting humans able to walk, run, jump at the speed of other humans.
Of Code And Men
I ASKED for FREAKING LAZERS damnit... Whats a guy supposed to do around here?
When she saw the artificial fin for the first time, she ran away - did they graft legs onto her first?
"I'm curious how many more animals need prosthetics?"
I saw a titmouse once. It didn't have any, well uhm... you know.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/3 754310.stm
Hmmm?
...I really would like a new pair of shoes, can you help me?
This is less applicable being in a hman controlled environement. But I have to wonder if our attempts to "help" animals actually results in long-term harm. Like it or not, the weak are supposed to die out. Perhaps we should do less to help animals.
I will also temper my argument by saying that people need to stop intruding so much on animals' natural habitats so that they can have a healthy population that can rebound from the occasional disease or natural disaster.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
"Every dolphin wants prosthetic tail fins on their real fins..."
No they can't do that! This is their attempt to rebalance the karma loss from continued hunting (I mean research) of whales. It would be plain wrong to kill a defective animal for food when there are bigger healthier ones to eat (I mean research).
-- Instant Karma's gonna get you! [320848 = 2*2*2*2*11*1823]
That is all.
...that wearing this fin for too long makes the dolphin tyred.
This is just the first step in uplifting the dolphins.
Next step: decyphering trinary.
"We make tires; we specialize in foots of sort. If we see offers, we will consider them," he said.
I guess a fin qualifies under "foots of sort". You have to hand it to capitalism. What other manufacturing culture would even consider "foots of sort" for a lady porpoise.
Based on the following, "Visitors have told us she looks happy," he said. Inside Bridgestone a line of female prosthetics is undder consideration. An anonymous source reports, "There has been a sudden shift in our research departments interest in hootage. What was once considered locker decoration may soon beccome a significant contributor to our bottom line. Yes, pun on purpose, we are looking into booty enhancments as well."
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Does anyone know how the dolphin gets used to using the new fin? If people go through training to use a fake leg, how do dolphins do it?
There are more photos in the page of the Aquarium (in Japanese) Chura Umi Aquarium
Dolphins have been given artificial flippers on several occasions before this.
So long, and thanks for all the fins.
- "They misunderestimated me."
Actually whales and porpoises taste nothing like tuna. The meat is very tender and tastes a bit like premium beef. I doubt dolphins taste much different. Last time Rainbow Warrior was in port we had a Barbecue on the wharf right next to it. No prizes for guessing what we were barbecuing ...
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I, for one, welcome our new artificial fin wearing, dolphin jumping overlords.
spending a few tens of thousands on a fun project, overstating the cost to your company to the press, and enjoying WORLDWIDE FEELGOOD PUBLICITY FOR NOTHING? doesn't sound that bad a deal to me. Look how much bridgestone spend on F1 tyres, for example...
as the other poster put it "not to rag on vietnam vets" but that was 30 years ago. Hell before I was even born. Not that I think they don't deserve help just that at this point in the game they probably didn't want the help.
Though I have yet to see a dude in a wheelchair who was actually from a war and not just handicapped either from birth or another accident.
In Canada at least I don't share many thoughts with the homeless street bums. Shelters exist where you can get a shower, shave and food. There is no reason to be a disgusting totally unemployable slob on the streets other than you're too lazy to actually clean yourself...
Of course you have to be sober to stay at most shelters.... but no wait society forced those drugs into the guys arm. Yah....
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
"In a related story, the 1-8 Miami Dolphins announced that all player surgery will henceforth be performed in Japan."
now she has to be balanced and rotated every 10,000 miles.
I guess that everyone thinks that's the normal price for a chunk of rubber?
Bridgestone have an odd idea of marketing!
Or has no one else RTFA?
So Long and Thanks for all the fish
Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
However, I'm drunk. So fuck youse all.
Time for Flipper and chips.
Just make sure some pub in Britain does the cooking. As bad as their food is supposed to be, it is the only place I've ever had good Flipper and chips.
Fool! Do you really think what what youve eaten to be tuna is really tuna? It's tuna that tastes like dolphin! bahaha ;)
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
First, I generally agree with you, but this is still a worthwhile act. Corporations are, in a legal sense, people, and should act as responsible members of the community. Charitable corporate donations have plunged over the last twenty years. Any positive action, even helping a dolphin, is a good thing.
Considering that Bridgestone's primary product (tires) is environmentally quite destructive, helping an animal is the least that they can do. We can be critical about what other causes they could have chosen to support, we can even make fun of dolphins, but fundamentally it was a decent act to help the creature.
How much is a dolphin worth? It's market value, or it's value as a living, caring, creature? People spend fortunes taking care of their pets, though it would be much cheaper to purchase a new dog or cat. They do it because they recognize the moral value and ethical requirement to be a good caretaker for the creature that they own. This is a 34 year old dolphin, dependant on human beings for it's life. There is nothing wrong with being decent towards it.
All of the alternate uses are good, even better. But to get a corporation to do something good is in itself remarkable.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Though I've never had body parts come through (at least, not as part of the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1996), although many of my customers may have desired the transaction of the body parts of their rivals.
I'm curious. How much do you give to charity each year?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Wow, who modded him down to a 0? Your post really is a bit cynical as he notes.
> > > Dolphins aren't "always smiling". That's just an optical illusion[...]
> > > Dolphins don't use radar. It's sonar.
> > > If dolphins are that smart, why haven't they built cities?
> > > Finally, why does every can of tuna say on it "Dolphin friendly" ?
> > > They aren't beautiful, they're overrated. Dolphin-worship culture is merely an excuse for whiney new-age types {who probably believe in aliens as well} to make their own miserable existences seem a little less pointless. {And for people to make a quick buck selling tat decorated with dolphins to gullible people.}
I work at an aquarium, and I've the liberty of preserving the rest of the reply to this thread.
clik-k-reeeeeek-klik-rDELPHINE TRANSLATOR ACTIVE
> > "Tee-hee! You're an orca, aren't you? Got the cute little eye patch thing goin' on, but we warned you about the primates and their looking-boxes. The primates, especially the ones on Slashdot, are really protective of their mascot. Silly Orcas, always thinkin' with your stomach, not your brain.
> >
> >VOTE LEVIATHAN-2008! THE ILLUMINATED CHOICE!!!k!ik!"
vrooooop-wooooaSPECIES TRANSITION DETECTED
> "Yeah, yeah, yeah... So Shamfoo ate one fuckin' penguin in front of a National Geographic expedition, and we never hear the end of it. Fuck you, fin-boy, and your blowhole end up lookin' like that guy on tunase-cx. Oh, and Leviathan's a pussy.
>
>CTHULHU-2008, YOU COMMIE FINBERAL WUSS!!!wo!o!!oo!!oo!o!"
Dolphins are vastly superior to human beings : they don't need to have cities nor vehicules ; they're fit to their environement far better than we are to ours. They're actually among the fastest creatures in the water. Our best boats are just close to their top speed, after 15.000 years of so-called "scientific evolution". They don't need to work to buy food : they can grab a snack whenever they want, wherever they want. Try to catch a rabbit on your own ! They're smarter than humans : no dolphin would attack one of its sibblings. So they can spend an entire laid-back life, probably telling themselves fun stories about us, forever enslaved and fighting hostile conditions.
But there is more : being a dolphin, you would have a lifelong erection, and not having to go to the old trick of "- Here is your aspirin darling ! - What for, I've got no headeache ? - Fine, let's shag!" to have sexual relationships.
If I were on metempsychosis, I would DIE to reincarnate into a dolphin.
Now that would be cool.
--- Ban humanity.
And in Other News.... Restaurant owners accross the Far East have noticed a sharp increase in the supply of dolphin fins for their soups. "Mysterious ilness" indeed... It's called a knife.
Do you know how many condoms that would buy?
--- Ban humanity.
How is this getting rated insightful? This is either a troll or a moron.
First off, it isn't philanthropy because you can only be philanthropic towards humans.
Second, Bridgestone is doing this as a cool way to market themselves and maybe do something nice at the same time.
Third, by your argument you should sell your property, if any, stop eating nice food, stop using medical insurance, stop going on trips, stop buying new clothes, and stop using electricity. The amount of lives you could save with all of that money by far dwarfs your own - even if you die because you are homeless and malnourished, you're going to make it so that hundreds of children will live. So please, go follow your own advice and stop not saving children's lives by posting on slashdot. I figure every 10 posts is another dead baby at your feet.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
Oh stop with your bleeding heart bullshit. $100,000 is peanuts, and I bet most of the expense is manhours from people at the tire company.
The "money could have been spent elsewhere" argument can go on forever. You've mistaken "philanthropy" for a very cheap PR. Bridgestone just got a LOT of cheap very positive advertising out of this story.
That's even really beside the point. Are people not allowed to spend money anymore because there's some other "better" place that their efforts could have gone? How many lives could have been saved with the money that went to that computer in front of you?
AccountKiller
at first I was gonna start with the age old Shark-laser thing, but think about it Dolphins with prosthetic lasers! They are more intelligent than sharks, and could be trained to fire lasers on cue!
First came sharks with frikkin' lasers attached to their heads and now bionic finned dolphins... when did we decide to go Inspector Gadget on our sea creatures?
"When she saw the artificial fin for the first time, she ran away. She was so scared of the object. It took us five months to make her get used to the artificial fin. Now she is perfectly fine with it," he said.
Wow! They got her artificial feet too?
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Every time there's a story about some interesting research somebody posts this.
You're wrong.
It is not correct - in the general case - to not do research because the money could have been spent feeding starving children.
There exist numerous organisations that exist solely to collect money to help starving / sick / poor children in third world countries. They could always use more money, but this is no different than it's been in the past fifty years, and it's way better than it was before that.
Research needs to happen. Pure research, with no immediate obvious payback ends up consistantly producing more valuable results per dollar in the long term than pretty much anything else that can be done with money - assuming that civilization is n't horribly broken somehow.
Those water purifiers you mentioned? We wouldn't even have them without pure research having been done in the past.
Now, giving a dolphin an artificial fin may not seem like such a big deal - or even like it would ever matter at all, but it answers some interesting research questions: Can a dolphin adapt to a prosthesis? How long does it take? How do we make one?
Another point: You reference $95,000 as being a lot of money. It's not, especially in the context keeping captive dolphins.
It's not like if the money hadn't been spent on an artificial fin it would have gone to a charity anyway. It probably would have gone to some other dolphin-related expense.
In conclusion: Charity is not, in the general case, a better use of money than research.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Isn't that the fluke rather than the fin
they're talking about?
Well. I agree that pure basic research is a very good use of money, and in the long run, research is a better investment in the betterment of mankind's situation than one-shot charity. For example, pure research in atomic reactors and fusion, while perhaps not immediately leading to a commercial product, ultimately brings us closer to cheap clean engery and a better life for everyone. I however fail to discern how 'questions' like "Can a dolphin adapt to a prosthesis" will lead to bettering humanity's condition in life.
Its a matter of priorities. In this case, IMHO, building a water purification unit (which will last for years) for a village in Africa serves the long term interest of humanity better than putting a prosthesis on a dolphin.
I am curious HighOrbit ... what do you do for a living? Do you better humanity's condition daily? What do you spend your money on? Anything for yourself? Any luxuries? Lecturing on Slashdot is all well and good ... but I doubt you hold up to your own standards ... most people don't hold up to their own. Can you? I would welcome a reply.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
One of those few times that /. get's beat out by the US press.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
To get personal, I am a civil servant and I have worked in public service my entire adult life. And yes, I do give to charity (mainly the March of Dimes).
We live in a world of scare resources and waste is irrational. Luxury is not necessarily evil because it is an element of human happiness. But waste is evil because it squanders resources while maximizing no moral good. There are only so many resources to go around and yes, sick children do rate higher on my list of priorites than animals. If I had $95K extra to give to charity, I would be interested in prosthesis for human beings and not animals.
In a way, this is a strange argument for me to make because I am a libertarian influenced strongly by Rand. In Objectivist though, altruism is mostly considered to be bunk and self-interest is considered the superior morality. Generally, I agree with that analysis. However, when charity is given (for whatever reason it suits you to give it), I would hope that rationality and reason would prevail instead of irrational "the dolphins make me cry" misguided altruism. If you consider youself part of humanity, then the advancement of humanity is rationally also in your own self interest (although in a roundabout matter). Since I wish to live in a world free of disease, war, and poverty, I think it is rational to work toward those goals and that is where my "charity" is directed.
And yes, there are always better uses of money. Without getting on a logical slippery slop that many people seem to falsely imply, spending money on your fellow human beings is both more rational (and in IMHO therefore more moral) than wasting it on an animal.
Stupid gimpy fish! Oh yeah?!! Whatta ya goin' ta do aboot it?!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
mmmmm.... tastes just like chicken of the sea!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They were after a rubber that is easy on female skin, it too has to endure physical stress and is often wet. Wink wink, nudge nudge you know what I mean.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So she would have to get used to having something attached to her but she is a trained animal with reasonably intelligence. Even dogs manage to get used to being attached to wheels instead of legs and you can't get much dumber then dogs. (oh and dog lovers bite me. Only a braindead creature can keep up a bark for hours on end before getting bored)
So how do dolphins do it? Simple same as we do when we hurt our foot and use a crutch for a while. No training needed.
When the entire leg is gone and people have to train to use a completly different set of damaged and weakened muscles to walk, that is when the months of retraining start kicking in. You don't need to retrain seeing when you finally get the glasses you have been avoiding to get do you?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No they haven't.
=Shreak
Dept of Assertions
fin enlargement - check
smile tuck - check
exfoliation - check
lose 20 lbs - check
blowhole piercing - check
dump husband - check
Those suckaz flip over for no good reason.
If that don't just beat all. But, if they can fix a Bobbitt...
Available figures are ranging from 20 km/h to 40 km/h for "normal speed" (depending on the species), with a record of 56 km/h. I agree it's nowhere near 100 km/h, but 100 km/h is for a racing motor boat with over 250 hp ; how much HP are packed in a dolphin ? Not much more than a couple, I bet (optimisticaly). Add to that that race boats are far from being all weather - if the waves get in, they'll flip over pretty easly. So compared to normal, usable boats, the dolphin still does pretty well.
That's dolphine for "Look ma no hands!". The fin.
Smile.
Well, they are the second most intelligent animal on our planet....
What's emacs?
Winks as good as a nod to a blind man
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Its nice to see humans doing something kind for another creature.
;)
I personally think its our best and most uniquely human attribute. Bravo Japan. The Japanese continue to enrich our world with their kindness, and technological "know how"
Nice fuzzy warm story... Maybe we as a human race should do more kind things like this and a little less bombing.
We might just learn to like living in peace with our planet and ourselves.
Back to doom3
I for one welcome our new evil cyborg dolphin overlords.
Have you metaroderated recently?
Watch me meta-bitch-slap your asses from "moderators" down to "readers".
(Burning karma, and proud to do so.)
Please help metamoderate.
The first, and most important thing (that you missed from my earlier post) is that the money that went to the dolphin's new fin could not have gone to charity. It was eithor dolphin research money or rubbers research money.
The fact that there's no way to randomly reach into an aquarium or corporate R&D lab's budget and use it to build water purifiers for villiages in Afria is a good thing. Pure research would grind to a halt if there was a comittee of nonscientific citizens who approved each research project beforehand. ("100 square mile array of satilite dishes for radio astronomy or buy food for ten thousand starving kids in Uganda for a year...")
Second, how can you possibly know that the question "Can a dolphin adapt to a prosthesis" isn't important? Are you an expert in marine mamals? Mamilian nervous systems?
The thing about pure research is that you don't know where it will lead or what you might learn.
You mention "Long term interests of humanity". Perhaps if you could show a specific case where a single water treatment facility would allow a town or city to get in a position where they wouldn't need aid like that again it would be arguable, but the simple fact of having answered a scientific has long term value all by itself.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
No beer, no TV make Lifthrasir something something
I work in the human prosthetic business, but have seen and heard of quite a few prosthetics used on animals, including mostly horses and dogs. They tend to be more on the functional side rather than cosmetic. But they do exist. There doesn't seem to be a certain profession for animal prosthetics. Most often it is either prosthetist or engineers creating them for pet owners. But it's nice to see the development of such devices and the publicity is always good for the industry.