Noisy Fish

Retirees in Florida are rockin' to the beat of a different drum...and they're not too thrilled about it.

Black drum mating calls travel at a low enough frequency and long enough wavelength to carry through sea walls, into the ground and through the construction of waterfront homes like the throbbing beat in a passing car.

In fact, lots of fishes, including the toadfish (see his handsome mug below) make sounds and today's New York Times has a wonderful article (with lots of extras) all about ocean noise. Also, check out Fishbase for sound recordings of fishes (click on "sounds" link under "more information" for the fish in question).

i-e42772dc4b37ee2275abbc566de7248e-fish_1_650.jpg

More like this

Puffer fish are notorious. Considerable delicacy in Japan (a taste adopted by some non-Japanese Foodies), they come with a side of risk: some puffer fish have the potent lethal toxins tetrodotoxin and/or saxitoxin, neurotoxins more than 1000 times the lethal potency of cyanide:
A not at all exhaustive collection of cool bizarro aquariums.
I'm a big fish eater. In general, given a choice about what to eat, I'm usually happiest when I get to eat a nice fish. Even now that I've started eating beef again, most of the time, I'd rather eat a nice piece of wild salmon than pretty much anything made of beef.
A fascinating new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the impact of human fishing may be reducing the fitness of fish populations overall.

Many doctors are polymaths---writers, musicians, surfers, but obviously, these things are relegated to hobby status. Still, medicine does not require one to abandon a creative life.

I always tell people that they shouldn't go to medical school unless they reallyreallyreally want to be a doctor. If they don't, it's expensive, depressing, I think people differ greatly on this issue. For example, if it were completely unidentifiable as my own, I would have no problem with thanks herkese