It\u2019s been discovered that herrings pass gas.<\/p>\n
While congregated in great shoals.<\/p>\n
The news isn\u2019t new\u2014in fact the background studies were done in the early 2000s\u2014but my attention was drawn to it by a \u201cFact or Crap\u201d page-a-day calendar (on September 21 to be precise).<\/p>\n
Where do I start? The pitch? The communal nature? The interpretation? So many facets\u2014so little space!<\/p>\n
Apparently, herring \u201cerupt\u201d mostly at night, and researchers were pursuing the possibility that they do so as a gathering call, to form protective shoals. (Yes, I know\u2014counter-intuitive to us humans.) They arrived at that hypothesis because the phenomenon only manifests itself when darkness and large numbers of fish are involved. Which leads me to think about when I used to play sardines and someone would wait in a closet until it was full of people and then let rip. Given that sardines are members of the herring family, this fishy research finding seems entirely in line with my empirical research.<\/p>\n
The frequency of the emissions (I\u2019ll resist the obvious!) is up to 22kHz, way above my limit of hearing (or capabilities), so how would I know if I was swimming in the ocean at night with a shoal of herring beneath me? Would it be a potential health hazard? Apparently not. Fortunately, the air that they expel isn\u2019t associated with the digestive tract; the fish gulp air at the surface and store it in their swim bladders so that they can \u201cchat\u201d later on. Therefore, the gas only smells fishy and not in any way like the human equivalents.<\/p>\n
Actually, I\u2019m amazed that this communal piscine fartfest hasn\u2019t been discovered before; surely the water above the shoal must resemble a jacuzzi.<\/p>\n
Which is how (I presume) I would know I was swimming above a shoal of herring.<\/p>\n
Are these piscine pops just a general \u201ccome hither\u201d broadcast, or is the language more sophisticated? I believe that a character from The Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy might be able to help.<\/p>\n
Many people are aware of the babel fish<\/a>\u2014the alien fish from H2G2 that performs instant translations.<\/p>\n It seems to me that it\u2019s uniquely placed to help scientists further their research into this phenomenon, although if the babel fish shares (polite) humankind\u2019s aversion to farting in company, it might demand some kind of danger money. But if it is<\/em> up to the job, it should be a piece of cake \u2013 in fact it could talk to humans and herrings simultaneously; its head would be engaged in human conversation while its opposite end would be talking to the herrings.<\/p>\n Just as long as it doesn\u2019t forget which end to use when talking to humans.<\/p>\n Joseph Pujol was a French entertainer whose forte was to be seemingly able to fart at will. One of the highlights of his performance was to play the French national anthem on an ocarina<\/a> using a rubber tube to connect the instrument with the source of the wind.<\/p>\n Think of the potential if someone were able to harness the talents of a shoal of herring and conduct them. Instead of just the French national anthem, the entire 1812 overture\u2014or the Beatles\u2019 \u201cAll You Need is Love\u201d\u2014might be possible.<\/p>\n Although at 22kHz, human audiences would be unable to enjoy the achievement\u2026<\/p>\n And finally\u2026 I sense some kind of kinship between herrings and politicians\u2014the similarity being the auditory origin of their discourse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s been discovered that herrings pass gas. While congregated in great shoals. The news isn\u2019t new\u2014in fact the background studies were done in the early 2000s\u2014but my attention was drawn to it by a \u201cFact or Crap\u201d page-a-day calendar (on September 21 to be precise). Where do I start? The pitch? The communal nature? The interpretation? So many facets\u2014so little… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,490],"tags":[665],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fake","category-the-commentaries","tag-nsfw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1540,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/1540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Le P\u00e9tomane<\/h1>\n
Piscine Politicians?<\/h1>\n