Listening to AC/DC Makes Great White Sharks Calmer
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
Oh, silly marine biologists, when will you stop pulling stunts like this for cheap headlines that draw superficial attention?John Funk said:
Whenever they "discover" sound causing a dramatic impact on animal behavior, it's always metal, or some other similar style of music cited as the culprit. Styles of music that tend to be moderate-to-fast and bass-heavy obviously contain more low-frequency sounds in more noticeable patterns.
A pattern that is too regular (say, a low-frequency drone. Or club music) could be disregarded as noise. A pattern that is too random might seem too confusing, and might not spark the same curiosity. A complex pattern, like the interaction of bass guitar and kick drum sounds from a rock song, often hit just the right balance.
Additionally, low-frequency sounds travel much farther. This is especially true in water. See: whale songs. What we're used to hearing of whale songs is just what they sound like when sped up (to get them into our hearing range). Elephants also use these "infrasounds," which travel for miles--this is separate from the familiar (and more readily audible) elephant trumpeting sound.
People react differently to them, as well. Instinctively, they put us in an excited state, because "deep sound" usually meant "large animal." Either a big predator or big prey. Also, a lower sound is more likely to match up with the resonant frequency of one of our sensory organs and cause some interesting stimulation (see: "ghost" sightings, etc.).
Another possible explanation, pertaining to sharks, is that this may recreate the rhythmic "hum" of large boat engines. To some of these sharks, boats mean food--either camera crews chumming/baiting them, or just smaller fish munching on the food stirred up by the boat's wake.
It's an interesting finding, though not unexpected, but they always feel the need to try to make it "relevant" by tying the result to something like rock or metal or rap. It's like when the discovery of the existence of a new planet that might be similar to Earth hits headlines as, "Life in Space: Another Earth Discovered?" or something.
And the same is true of the original singer, Bon Scott (who moved from Scotland to Australia at age 6). However, when Bon Scott died, he was replaced by Brian Johnson, who was born and raised in England (and according to my research, now lives in Florida when not on tour!).MurderousToaster said:
umm, we "hear" things by interpreting vibrations. Just because sharks don't have ears doesn't mean they aren't "hearing" the vibrations in a similar way.
Pal,you have just make my day seriously this is freaking awesome.If AC/DC is liked by white sharks it proves that they are badass
Pop music inherently uses higher sound pitches anyways, so that's exactly what it would do (unless it just didn't have an effect at all).Kevlar Eater said: