Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Google’s new AI is trying to talk to dolphins—seriously

DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication 

From Gizmodo By Isaac Schultz

A new AI model produced by computer scientists in collaboration with dolphin researchers could open the door to two-way animal communication.
In a collaboration that sounds straight out of sci-fi but is very much grounded in decades of ocean science, Google has teamed up with marine biologists and AI researchers to build a large language model designed not to chat with humans, but with dolphins.

The model is DolphinGemma, a cutting-edge LLM trained to recognize, predict, and eventually generate dolphin vocalizations, in an effort to not only crack the code on how the cetaceans communicate with each other—but also how we might be able to communicate with them ourselves.
Developed in partnership with the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP) and researchers at Georgia Tech, the model represents the latest milestone in a quest that’s been swimming along for more than 40 years.

 
A bottlenose dolphin underwater.
Photo: טל שמע
 
A deep dive into a dolphin community

Since 1985, WDP has run the world’s longest underwater study of dolphins.
The project investigates a group of wild Atlantic spotted dolphins (S. frontalis) in the Bahamas.
Over the decades, the team has non-invasively collected underwater audio and video data that is associated with individual dolphins in the pod, detailing aspects of the animals’ relationships and life histories.

The project has yielded an extraordinary dataset—one packed with 41 years of sound-behavior pairings like courtship buzzes, aggressive squawks used in cetacean altercations, and “signature whistles” that act as dolphin name tags.

Left: A mother spotted dolphin observes her calf while foraging.
She will use her unique signature whistle to call the calf back after he is finished.
Right: Spectrogram to visualize the whistle.

This trove of labeled vocalizations gave Google researchers what they needed to train an AI model designed to do for dolphin sounds what ChatGPT does for words.
Thus, DolphinGemma was born: a roughly 400-million parameter model built on the same research that powers Google’s Gemini models.

DolphinGemma is audio-in, audio-out—the model “listens” to dolphin vocalizations and predicts what sound comes next—essentially learning the structure of dolphin communication.
 

AI and animal communication

Artificial intelligence models are changing the rate at which experts can decipher animal communication.
Everything under the Sun—from dog barks and bird whistles—is easily fed into large language models which then can use pattern recognition and any relevant contexts to sift through the noise and posit what the animals are “saying.”

Last year, researchers at the University of Michigan, Mexico’s National Institute of Astrophysics, and the Optics and Electronics Institute used an AI speech model to identify dog emotions, gender, and identity from a dataset of barks.

Cetaceans, a group that includes dolphins and whales, are an especially good target for AI-powered interpretation because of their lifestyles and the way they communicate.
For one, whales and dolphins are sophisticated, social creatures, which means that their communication is packed with nuance.
But the clicks and shrill whistles the animals use to communicate are also easy to record and feed into a model that can unpack the “grammar” of the animals’ sounds.
Last May, for example, the nonprofit Project CETI used software tools and machine learning on a library of 8,000 sperm whale codas, and found patterns of rhythm and tempo that enabled the researchers to create the whales’ phonetic alphabet.

Talking to dolphins with a smartphone

The DolphinGemma model can generate new, dolphin-like sounds in the correct acoustic patterns, potentially helping humans engage in real-time, simplified back-and-forths with dolphins.
This two-way communication relies on what a Google blog referred to as Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry, or CHAT—an underwater computer that generates dolphin sounds the system associates with objects the dolphins like and regularly interact with, including seagrass and researchers’ scarves.

“By demonstrating the system between humans, researchers hope the naturally curious dolphins will learn to mimic the whistles to request these items,” the Google Keyword blog stated.
“Eventually, as more of the dolphins’ natural sounds are understood, they can also be added to the system.”
 
Meet C.H.A.T. (Cetacean Hearing Augmented Telemetry), an initiative between Georgia Tech researchers and Dr. Herzing of the Wild Dolphin Project that explores dolphin communication and behavior in the open ocean. 
Made in the school of Interactive Computing, C.H.A.T. is a wearable underwater technology that can produce repeatable artificial dolphin sounds. 
The way it works is that two sets of divers wearing the device swim alongside dolphins while passing items back and forth. 
One diver will use C.H.A.T. to emit a pre-programed artificial dolphin like whistle to ask for the item. 
The divers will repeat this process several times, all while the device is recording sounds underwater. 
The goal is to see if the dolphins will watch this behavior and begin to mimic one of the artificial whistles to ask for the item.
 
CHAT is installed on modified smartphones, and the researchers’ idea is to use it to create a basic shared vocabulary between dolphins and humans.
If a dolphin mimics a synthetic whistle associated with a toy, a researcher can respond by handing it over—kind of like dolphin charades, with the novel tech acting as the intermediary.

Future iterations of CHAT will pack in more processing power and smarter algorithms, enabling faster responses and clearer interactions between the dolphins and their humanoid counterparts.
Of course, that’s easily said for controlled environments—but raises some serious ethical considerations about how to interface with dolphins in the wild should the communication methods become more sophisticated.
TED : Could we speak the language of dolphins?
For 28 years, Denise Herzing has spent five months each summer living with a pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins, following three generations of family relationships and behaviors.
It's clear they are communicating with one another -- but is it language?
Could humans use it too?
She shares a fascinating new experiment to test this idea.
 
A summer of dolphin science

Google plans to release DolphinGemma as an open model this summer, allowing researchers studying other species, including bottlenose or spinner dolphins, to apply it more broadly.
DolphinGemma could be a significant step toward scientists better understanding one of the ocean’s most familiar mammalian faces.

We’re not quite ready for a dolphin TED Talk, but the possibility of two-way communication is a tantalizing indicator of what AI models could make possible.
 
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Monday, April 28, 2025

Mysterious underwater 'UFO base' spotted just 6 miles off the West Coast of California


A mysterious formation lurking deep in the ocean has been spotted just a few miles off the coast of Southern California

From DailyMail by Stacy Liberatore

A mysterious formation lurking deep in the ocean has been spotted just a few miles off the coast of Southern California.

Geographically known as Sycamore Knoll, the natural underwater structure looks like a bump pushing up from the ocean floor, with a flat, table-like top.

It has been studied by scientists for years, though recent claims by conspiracy theorists have suggested Sycamore Knoll might be an underwater 'alien base.'

A Reddit post from earlier this year featured a Google Earth image of Sycamore Knoll with the title: 'Underwater UFO base between Malibu and Catalina Island.'
'Some refer to it as an anomaly while others believe it is an alien base,' a Redditor shared in another post this year.
'It's believed to be between two-and-a-half and three miles wide.'
 
Localization with the GeoGarage platform (NOAA raster chart)
 
Visualization of Sycamore Knoll in the NOAA ENC viewer (ENC US3CA69M)
 
zoom of the ENC over the blurry Google area
 
Sycamore Knoll sits about 2,000 feet below the surface and is located 6.6 miles off the coast of Malibu. It is located at geographic coordinates 34° 1'23.31″N 118° 59'45.64″W.

While Google Earth images from 2014 captured detailed views of the formation, it appears to have been wiped from the platform as of 2025, adding more mystery about its origins.


Sycamore Knoll sits about 2,000 feet below the surface and is located 6.6 miles off the coast of Malibu. It is located at geographic coordinates 34° 1'23.31″N 118° 59'45.64″W

The formation, however, can be seen on other online mapping platforms such as a fishing charter app.

Sycamore Knoll has been known for the past several decades but gained widespread public attention in 2014 when Google Earth images led to speculation about its structure, with some suggesting it resembled an artificial or alien base.

The structure was also featured on the 'Fade to Black' podcast with Host Jimmy Church, who fed into conspiracies proclaiming it as not natural, but rather extraterrestrial.
He speculated that it could be the biggest center of UFO activity found since Roswell, New Mexico, the Los Angeles Almanac reported.

The National UFO Reporting Center has also received many reports of mysterious objects flying over the exact area as Sycamore Knoll, with some people saying they spotted craft emerging from the ocean.

'It looked like a massive, cathedral-shaped structure — multiple pointed edges all glowing brilliantly white, heading straight into the ocean,' one California resident reported to the UFO reporting site after seeing a mysterious craft in the sky.
'There was no splash, no sound... just a flash, and it was gone.
'It happened so fast — like a giant ship or object vanishing beneath the surface in an instant.'

The X account Daily UFO, which has over 35,000 followers, shared a post about Sycamore Knoll in January, noting how Google Earth previously showed the tabletop formation and now it is blurred.


The formation, however, can be seen on other online mapping platforms
such as a fishing charter app (pictured)

The natural underwater structure looks like a bump pushing up from the ocean floor, 
with a flat, table-like top
 
The dark areas that people are saying look like the inside of the base really starts to look just like shading of indentations to the shelf, and the 'pillars' are now represented as jagged ridges.
(GE 2014)

Some have suggested that the Google Earth image 'isn't an actual picture, so there's nothing to blur,' noting that 'it's a digital markup of data.
The 'blur' is just a lack of data.'

Republican Congressman Tim Burchett also claimed in January that an admiral, whom he did not identify, told him about a UFO that was moving underwater at remarkable speed.
'They tell me something's moving at hundreds of miles an hour underwater... as large as a football field, underwater,' the Tennessee congressman told former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, who now hosts a show on right-wing news outlet One America News.
'This was a documented case, and I have an admiral telling me this stuff.'
 

The renewed attention in Sycamore Knoll also comes days after a UFO expert who released a new video this week showing the infamous Tic Tac revealed bombshell theories about the phenomenon.

Jeremy Corbell, an investigative journalist and filmmaker known for his work with George Knapp on military-documented unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), has once again ignited public debate over UFOs - this time with newly released footage captured aboard the USS Jackson in 2023.

The video, made public this month after a multi-year verification process, shows what Corbell and military witnesses described as a 'self-luminous, wingless, tailless' craft rising from the Pacific Ocean.

While Google Earth images from 2014 captured detailed views of the formation, it appears to have been wiped from the platform as of 2025, adding more mystery about its origins
 
Current view (satellite imagery 2023)
Google obtains their underwater data from several different sources, including satellite radar and echo sonar from the Navy, NOAA, NASA and other agencies.
Because they often use very different technologies, the derived information isn't always going to agree. When it doesn't, Google relies on its automatic 3D auto-generation programs to make sense of it.
"We're dealing with limited information to render the graphic because we can see it evidenced in the disparity of image quality between the anomaly and the areas immediately surrounding it," former FBI spacial agent Ben Hansen (who has an extensive background investigating and analyzing questionable pictures and videos) added. 
"The blurry sections and jagged edges obviously suggest a patchwork of image processing has taken place."
 
But Corbell insisted the new footage is far from an isolated event.

Instead, he said it fits a broader and increasingly alarming pattern: repeated sightings of intelligently controlled craft that defy known aerodynamics, appear regularly in the same offshore military training zone, and may originate from below the ocean's surface.

According to Corbell, the 2023 incident echoes two other major military encounters: the 2004 Nimitz sighting and a lesser-known but well-documented 2019 event in which a swarm of UAPs surrounded ten Navy warships over multiple nights.

The new footage, he argued, is not a standalone revelation but part of a growing body of evidence pointing to intelligently controlled craft - capable of transmedium travel (moving seamlessly through space, air, and water) - that have repeatedly appeared over decades in the same region: Warning Area 291, off the coast of Southern California.

Jeremy Corbell, an investigative journalist and filmmaker known for his work with George Knapp on military-documented UAP, has once again ignited public debate over UFOs - this time with newly released footage captured aboard the USS Jackson in 2023


see video
 
Newly released video taken on board the USS Omaha, a littoral combat ship, shows what has been described as a transmedium vehicle (that is, a vehicle capable of traveling through both air and water) moving, hovering, and disappearing into the Pacific Ocean.

The 2023 release was supported by a new military witness: an active-duty U.S. Navy combat information center (CIC) operator who claims to have seen the object rise from the ocean with his own eyes.
Corbell and Knapp, known for handling sensitive testimonies, vetted the witness and aligned his account with radar data and FLIR imagery.
The Navy veteran tracked the object using the ship's high-powered SAPPHIRE FLIR thermal targeting system.
Radar detected four unknown targets in the area, though two were captured on video.
According to the witness, all four UAPs performed an instantaneous, synchronized maneuver, shooting off simultaneously without visible propulsion, suggesting intelligent coordination.
 
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Sunday, April 27, 2025

Cap Corse : the mystery of the rings

 
At a depth of almost 120m off Cap Corse, more than 1,400 perfect circles lie on the white sand.
How were they formed?
What are they made of?
How old are they?
To unravel this mystery, the Andromede Océanologie and Gombessa Expeditions teams, led by biologist and underwater photographer Laurent Ballesta, have surrounded themselves with some 40 scientists from a variety of disciplines (climatologists, geologists, biologists, oceanologists...).
This enigma has fascinated science for over ten years.
Are they submerged volcanic craters, traces of meteorites or, more prosaically, aggregates of hydrocarbons spilled into the sea?
 
Supported by the French Navy, an expedition of researchers and a team of divers led by biologist and photographer Laurent Ballesta set out to investigate and retrace the geological history of this unique site.
The mission reveals an extraordinary ecosystem, home to species never before seen. 
This three-year adventure demonstrated the uniqueness of the rings' ecosystem, a jewel of biodiversity. It has provided important ecological and geological evidence in favor of reinforcing protection of the area as part of the ZPF (Zone de Protection Forte) labeling process already initiated by the Cap Corse et Agriate Natural Marine Park (PNMCCA).

Friday, April 25, 2025

Dolphins are dying from toxic chemicals banned since the 1980s


A common dolphin stranded on a UK beach
Waves & Wellies Photography


From New Scientist by Melissa Hobson

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are commonly found in the bodies of short-beaked common dolphins that get stranded on UK beaches, and are linked to the animals’ risk of infectious diseases

Dolphins in seas around the UK are dying from a combination of increased water temperatures and toxic chemicals that the UK banned in the 1980s.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a long-lasting type of persistent chemical pollutant, once widely used in industrial manufacturing. They interfere with animals’ reproduction and immune response and cause cancer in humans.

In a new study, researchers showed that higher levels of PCBs in the body and increased sea surface temperatures are linked to a greater mortality risk from infectious diseases for short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), a first for marine mammals.

The ocean is facing “a triple planetary crisis” – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss – but we often look at threats in isolation, says Rosie Williams at Zoological Society of London.

Williams and her colleagues analysed post-mortem data from 836 common dolphins stranded in the UK between 1990 and 2020 to assess the impact of these interlinked threats.

They found a rise of 1 milligram of PCBs per kilogram of blubber was linked with a 1.6 per cent increase in the chance of infectious diseases – such as gastritis, enteritis, bacterial infection, encephalitis and pneumonia – becoming fatal. Every 1°C rise in sea surface temperature corresponded to a 14 per cent increase in mortality risk.

According to the study, the threshold where PCB blubber concentrations have a significant effect on a dolphin’s risk of disease is 22 mg/kg, but the average concentration in samples was higher, at 32.15 mg/kg.

Because dolphins are long-lived, widely distributed around the UK and high in the food chain, they are a good indicator species to show how threats might also affect other animals.

“Their position at the top of the food web means that toxins from their prey accumulate in their blubber, providing a concentrated snapshot of chemical pollutants in the ocean – though unfortunately at the expense of their health,” says Thea Taylor, managing director of Sussex Dolphin Project.



Despite being banned in the UK in 1981 and internationally in 2001, PCBs are still washing into the ocean. “They are still probably entering the environment through stockpiles and are often a side product or a byproduct of other manufacturing processes,” says Williams.

Cleaning up PCBs is very difficult. “Because they’re so persistent, they’re a nightmare to get rid of,” she says. “There is definitely not an easy fix.”

Some researchers are exploring dredging as a cleanup technique, while others are focused on improving water treatment plants’ effectiveness in removing persistent chemicals.

These findings indicate what might happen if action isn’t taken to ban perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), another widespread group of so-called forever chemicals.

“While we cannot reverse the contamination that has already occurred, it is critical to prevent further chemical inputs into the environment,” says Taylor.

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