00:08:32.380And then when they get further away, that dies out and just this really low, whatever, there's some sort of resonation chamber within the animal that is carrying those tones right down to the, just to the, almost to the limit of human hearing.
00:08:49.760And what is your specific fascination with the thrum?
00:08:55.580well part of it i think you know the real story here is uh why these low frequency signals are
00:09:05.540being produced by an animal that can be picked up at some of them we're estimating now peak this up
00:09:11.820to 15 kilometers away it's like but the real story is the fact that as far as we can tell um this has
00:09:17.740gone undescribed in terms of the scientific literature or even the popular literature it's
00:09:21.760like and these are the signals that um it's not like this is the blue whale and they're transmitting
00:09:26.900in the below human hearing and you have to upscale it this is within within all within the human
00:09:32.460hearing as far as we can tell and it and it's great i love it because it um people who come
00:09:40.560and have lost their uh much of their hearing they can still detect these they can almost feel them
00:09:46.160you know because usually it's like in humans we lose our up our high free higher frequency stuff
00:09:50.700right it's almost like this is the last sounds that people as we leave this mortal coil of nature
00:09:56.280that we'll still be able to hear with the unaided ear and i guess yeah the fascination lies in like
00:10:02.280how do signals get missed and being a part of the SETI program of course it's been 60 years of
00:10:09.540extremely dedicated searching for signals or for any signs of life outside of sweet Gaia planet
00:10:17.080earth and we know there's abundant water and prebiotic chemicals and lots of energy sources
00:10:23.860and a gazillion exoplanets like almost 6 000 and counting and many of those you know a number have
00:10:30.700been found in the habitable zone and very potentially could create an environment where
00:10:35.540life has evolved and but yet we're not it's just like we're just flatline we have a great
00:10:42.280abundance what we have found in great abundance is evidence of absence we know where we looked
00:10:47.980we know what frequencies we've checked um and so far it's just us and it makes you really appreciate
00:10:56.300the animals that you do have on this earth signals get missed and so keep looking don't lose heart
00:11:02.020and i guess the story is it's like what is it about what is it about how we've missed these
00:11:09.080thrums in these whales that we can apply to the search for life in the universe you know what
00:11:15.780perceptual filters or is it a technological one is it not having the right tools is it um so i
00:11:22.860think there's lessons to be learned from these um from these thrums and they're they're cool to
00:11:28.120listen to i mean they um when they're close at range it's almost like they can knock you off
00:11:33.620your your stool right they're so powerful so say we have missed these signals but then we find a way
00:11:42.560to find the signals or we are aware of the signals then then what um hopefully it makes us better
00:11:54.020stewards of the ocean better ocean users um because we could figure out what the signals
00:12:00.840mean well we could we can you know there's always the basic biology and just being fascinated by it
00:12:05.440and the more we learn um the more um aware we are and it's like that's cool and uh but there's also
00:12:12.300i think lots of um i think conservation applications um in terms of like being able for
00:12:18.940remote sensing um you typically we listened for whales by putting hydrophones underwater
00:12:24.520and listening to their chatter and their calling
00:12:28.880and their powerful voices, the songs of the humpbacks
00:12:31.800and the blue whales and all the species.
00:12:36.140But here's a chance to do that through the air,
00:12:38.900which is much more cost-effective using microphones.
00:13:22.460There's very elaborate alert programs that go on for the North Atlantic right whale,
00:13:26.920which is down to about 300 individuals.
00:13:28.820And so there's lots of efforts going into real-time detection of their spatial presence
00:13:33.540to advise ocean users and shippers and industry and commercial whale watchers
00:13:41.040of where the animals are and to give them some space.
00:13:45.460So being able to count them with the thrums, just being able to monitor them.
00:13:49.940And as a disentangler, as a NOAA volunteer as part of the disentanglement network, we get called out to approach animals that are in distress and we'll come up and do an initial examination of the animal to see if it's life-threatening.
00:14:07.960And if it is, then we'll summon more resources and do a full attempt to remove the gear off the animal.
00:14:15.360And the one thing we don't want is any more casualties.