more marine gas emissions in the news

[happythoughts 0]

Apparently, this whole "farting underwater" thing is not limited to whales. Herring use it to communicate. Apparently, it is a high-pitched noise. That makes sense because a higher pitch would come from the tightness. Water-tight would be important to a herring (or other herring).

You have got to read the entire article.

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Biologists have linked a mysterious, underwater farting sound to bubbles coming out of a herring's anus. No fish had been known to emit sound from its anus nor to be capable of producing such a high-pitched noise.

"It sounds just like a high-pitched raspberry," says Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Wilson and his colleagues cannot be sure why herring make this sound, but initial research suggests that it might explain the puzzle of how shoals keep together after dark.

"Surprising and interesting" is how aquatic acoustic specialist Dennis Higgs, of the University of Windsor in Ontario, describes the discovery. It is the first case of a fish potentially using high frequency for communication, he believes.

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The biologists initially assumed that the swim bladder was also producing the high-pitched sound they had detected. But then they noticed that a stream of bubbles expelled from the fish's anus corresponded exactly with the timing of the noise. So a more likely cause was air escaping from the swim bladder through the anus.

It was at this point that the team named the noise Fast Repetitive Tick (FRT). But Wilson points that, unlike a human fart, the sounds are probably not caused by digestive gases because the number of sounds does not change when the fish are fed.

clicky

[DrunkMonkey 0]

So that's that popping noise when I was diving in Mexico..Yuck...

[happythoughts 0]

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So that's that popping noise when I was diving in Mexico..Yuck...

"That wasn't me, that was the herring..."

Sure...you're one of those people who blames it on the dog, aren't ya?

"Geez, honey, what did you feed that dog?"

(Just kidding, only chicks blame the dog.)

[TheAnvil 0]

So, what would such a scientist's job description be?

Aquamarinefartologist?

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[happythoughts 0]

I am not sure what the job description is, but it must be steady work. The United Nations is studying cows butts, so the logical next step is fish butts.

With the recent news items about whale flatulence and now herring farts, this is the next major industry.

"It's time to sniff the cows butts, where's the trainee at?"
CNN study

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Belching and flatulence in cows and sheep annually produce 90 percent of Australia's methane emissions in the agricultural sector, a recent study shows.

In an effort to monitor Australia's national greenhouse gas inventory, Australian researchers went about calculating methane emissions from belching bovines and other livestock. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Australia has an obligation to report on greenhouse gas emissions, which include methane. All countries that are signatories to the convention are required to produce inventories of greenhouse gas emissions to demonstrate whether agreed target reductions over the period 1990 to 2010 are being met.

"The map is a tool to verify Australia's methane emissions," said Simon Bentley, a scientist at CSIRO's division of Atmospheric Research. "To create the methane map, we calculated how emissions vary from place to place and between seasons."