Page 22 - The Villager March 2021

Nature

absurd than elephants being able to
communicate via vibrations sent along
the ground from their feet.
bizarre, yes. absurd, no.
and consider sperm whales and how
they create underwater sound waves to
communicate with others on the other
side of the ocean.
Whether working in a marine
environment or on the american
Prairies, or in the hot, grassy plains of
africa, researchers have, for decades,
been observing and analysing the
actions and utterances of animals, wild
and domestic, hoping to devise a way
to converse with one.
So far, research has demonstrated
how organically and behaviourally
we mammals are linked to each other.
today, the world’s 6 000 different kinds
of mammals range from South africa’s
4 gram pygmy shrew to the 100 ton
blue whale off our coast.
the evolutionary paths of all of us
mammals parted from a common
ancestor 80 to 90 million years ago, yet
skeletally we have retained essentially
the same components. even inside the
dolphin’s flippers there are recognisable
finger bones, wrists and arms. the giraffe
has the same number of neck vertebrae
as humans - seven. In our social order
too, there are remarkable similarities.
We are but variations of a theme.
but there is one fundamental
difference: communication.
the rest of Mammalia doesn’t give
a hoot, or a whine, or a bark, about it,
but humans are currently putting in a
great deal of effort, seeking a way to
communicate with other species, on an
intelligent level. new technologies are
constantly being applied and, lately, all. but in pursuit of this holy grail, vagott kolbaszt, a zoldborsot es
there has been cautious optimism from scientists are making some amazing az aprora vagott fott tojassal, I db
very diverse research institutions. discoveries. nyers tojassal, sozzuk borsozzuk,
as one scientist put it, a breakthrough It is going to be difficult. Just look es az egeset jol osszekeverjuk.
would be the most game-changing at the problems we have among Were these the words that stirred
event in the history of biology. ourselves. We Homo sapiens are Middle eastern people to rise up
It would transform the way we view divided by 6 500 spoken languages. against ottoman rule? or are they from
our fellow creatures. how many educated people can make an instruction manual for building a
In truth, we haven’t gone far. Some sense of this brief passage: chicken house? In fact these words are
argue we haven’t gone anywhere at Ha kihult, hozzaadjuk a karikara from an hungarian cookbook on how

20 • Issue 3 2021 • The Villager