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Science

Nature Releases New Model of Whale 39

Posted by michael from the tastes-like-chicken dept.
Chromodromic writes "Yahoo! is running a story about Japanese scientists who say they have identified a new species of whale. The animal is a type of baleen, the family of whales that strain tiny plankton and other food from seawater. Apparently the discovery was made through the DNA analysis of nine already dead specimens. Expected follow-up: 'Japanese scientists announce extinction of newly discovered whale.'"
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Nature Releases New Model of Whale More

Nature Releases New Model of Whale

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  • Maybe they were fighting it out with the birds. [cnn.com]
  • I wonder how high the price per pound will be for the whale meat if it's so rare that we've never seen one before? It sounded like a pretty subtle difference between this whale and other similar species. Was there a suble difference in the taste that made them look at the DNA?
  • How did it taste?

  • Dead? Killed! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @05:48PM (#7515006) Journal
    Apparently the discovery was made through the DNA analysis of nine already dead specimens.

    Already dead since they'd been "harvested" (hunted) for "scientific research". After the "research" requirements are met, in order not to waste precious resources, the whales are turned over to Japan's whaling industry.

    As it happens, Japan does a lot of "scientific research", "harvesting" a quantity of whales that just coincidently matches the country's appetite for whale meat and blubber, considered a delicacy by the Japanese.

    But it's all about science, really. As it happens the new species was identified by examining skeletons of whales "harvested" in 1970.

    So only 33 years after the whales were turned into sushi, the science has caught up! Great work Japan!

    I hope the new species hasn't already been hunted, I mean harvested, I mean researched, to extinction. Wouldn't that be ironic?

  • Translation (Score:5, Funny)

    by WTFmonkey ( 652603 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @05:54PM (#7515077)
    For the benefit of any whales who happen to be reading this,

    eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee awha-a awha-a .rrrrrrrrrrach rrrrrrrrrrrrach bwo bwo bwo. phssssssthpok phssssthpok aaaiiiieee. Aiieeee gRR!gRR!gRRooooo!

    iiiiii iiiiiiiii iiiii br-er-er-er-er-i br-er br-er-br-oi-oooooooo ooo ooaeaeae.

  • Expected follow-up (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bowling Moses ( 591924 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @06:32PM (#7515521) Journal
    Expected follow-up: "Japanese food scientists announce newly discovered whale is tasty."

    But seriously, food science is still science. The happiest research chemist I ever met was the guy who develops new flavors of gummy bears. However, it's still at best highly questionable that any real research is done by Japanese (or whoever) whaling.

  • Bloody scientists out for 15 minutes of fame... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stjobe ( 78285 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @07:11PM (#7515878) Homepage
    "Can you imagine? An animal of more than 10 meters was unknown to us even in the 21st century," said Tadasu Yamada of Tokyo's National Science Museum, the senior author of the study that appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

    Unknown to us? Hardly. It was just that this species was so like fin whales it took DNA analysis of nine different specimen to separate this "unknown animal" from fin whales.

    Sure it's nice that careful DNA analysis shows that this indeed is (or at least might be - the jury is still out) a separate species, but that really don't justify the sensationalism.
    • Thank you - I couldn't be bothered to type all of that, but it needed to be said. Sensationalised pseudo-scientific media hype *grumble mutter*...

      Q.

  • Recent program shows odd trouble for whalers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @07:14PM (#7515923) Journal
    I think it was the bbc but it showed a program about japan and the whaling industry. The japanese are hanging on to it by all their might. Why? Because the japanese consumers wants to eat whalemeat? Hardly. In fact the japanese consumers DOESN'T want to eat whalemeat. It is in such low demand that they have set up a subsidised fast foot restaurant to try to get people to eat heavily subisdised meat.

    It seems more of a pride issue. The more the rest of the world says they should stop the more the old guard in japan, the same ones who see nothing wrong with japans war crimes, insist on keeping whaling alive.

    • It seems more of a pride issue. The more the rest of the world says they should stop the more the old guard in japan, the same ones who see nothing wrong with japans war crimes, insist on keeping whaling alive.

      Sounds like Iceland. Whale meat isn't particularly tasty, but it's traditional. Sort of like canabalism was in certain populations in the last century. Hopefully someday we will find new traditions. At least with pre-European American settlers it's not just tradition but also their great poverty tha

  • More Info at National Geographic (Score:4, Informative)

    by Cy Guy ( 56083 ) * on Wednesday November 19, 2003 @11:15PM (#7517357) Homepage Journal
    For example its actually two new identified species [nationalgeographic.com] since whales previously all considered Bryde's Whales are now considered to make up three distinct species - two known types previously thought to be the same species: Bryde's, and Eden, and this third species B. omurai.

    I take this to be good news, because if there are three distinct species that cannot be visually distinguished from each other, and one of them is determined to be rare or threatened, the Japanese will have a much harder time arguing for an outright hunt of Bryde's. I just hope they don't take the now proven usefulness of DNA information collected through "scientific" whaling, to be evidence that that particular insult to science should be continued or even expanded.
  • Yes, but how do they taste?

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