Readers ask about noise air pollution and beluga melons

Folks uncovered to noise air pollution throughout being pregnant could have an elevated danger of growing gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension and preeclampsia, some research counsel. A research printed in Might in JAMA Community Open additionally discovered that youngsters and adolescents dwelling in the UK in areas with excessive visitors noise have an elevated danger of tension.

One in a melon

Captive beluga whales warp their brow fats, known as melons, into distinct shapes once they’re round different belugas, Elizabeth Anne Brown reported in “Belugas could talk through ‘melons’ ” (SN: 6/1/24, p. 9).

Reader Jim Sobek puzzled whether or not altering the form of the melon helps the belugas higher hear one another throughout “conversations” by boosting or focusing sounds that they produce and obtain.

Belugas and different toothed whales sometimes hear via their decrease jaws and interior ears, so the melon is unlikely to play a task in receiving sounds, says Malin Lilley, a comparative psychologist at Texas A&M College–Central Texas in Killeen.

However toothed whales are identified to make use of their melons to transmit and direct echolocation clicks and different vocalizations into the setting. So it’s attainable that belugas warp their brow blobs to change the acoustic properties of their vocalizations, says animal behaviorist Justin Richard of the College of Rhode Island in Kingston. Nonetheless, the visible facet of the habits appears key to belugas’ social interactions, because the animals change their melon shapes primarily when different belugas can see them, Richard says. Learning the potential auditory parts of this distinctive beluga habits is a vital subsequent step in understanding its function within the whales’ banter.