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Tag Archives: mute
Recordings show some ‘mute’ animals communicate vocally: study
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Paris (AFP) – More than 50 animal species previously thought to be mute actually communicate vocally, according to a study published on Tuesday which suggested the trait may have evolved in a common ancestor over 400 million years ago.
The lead author of the study, evolutionary biologist Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen, told AFP he first had the idea of recording apparently mute species while researching turtles in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
“When I went back home, I decided to start recording my own pets,” Jorgewich-Cohen said. That included Homer, a turtle he has had since childhood.
To his great excitement, he discovered that Homer and his other pet turtles were making vocal sounds.
So he started recording other turtle species, sometimes using a hydrophone, a microphone for recording underwater.
“Every single species I recorded was producing sounds,” said Jorgewich-Cohen, a researcher at Zurich University in Switzerland.
“Then we started questioning how many more animals that are normally considered mute produce sounds.”
As well as 50 species of turtle, the study published in the journal Nature Communications also included recordings from three “very strange animals” considered mute, he said.
They include a type of lungfish, which has gills as well as lungs that allow it to survive on land, and a species of caecilian — a group of amphibians resembling a cross between a snake and a worm.
The research team also recorded a rare type of reptile only found in New Zealand called a tuatara, the only surviving member of an order called Rhynchocephalia which once spanned the globe.
All the animals made vocal sounds such as clicks and chirps or tonal noises, even if they were not very loud or only made them a few times a day.
Common vocal ancestor
The research team combined their findings with data on the evolutionary history of acoustic communication for 1,800 other species.
They then used an analysis called “ancestral state reconstruction”, which calculates the probability of a shared link back through time.
It had previously been thought that tetrapods — four-limbed animals — and lungfishes had evolved vocal communication separately.
“But now we show the opposite,” Jorgewich-Cohen said. “They come from the same place”.
“What we found is that the common ancestor of this group was already producing sounds, and communicating using those sounds intentionally,” Jorgewich-Cohen.
The common ancestor lived at least 407 million years ago during the Palaeozoic era, the study said.
John Wiens — an evolutionary biology professor at Arizona University in the United States who was not involved in the research — said the suggestion that “acoustic communication arose in the common ancestor of lungfish and tetrapods is interesting and surprising”.
Wiens, who published a 2020 paper called “the origins of acoustic communication in vertebrates”, welcomed the new data for the additional species.
But he suggested the study might not “necessarily distinguish between animals making sounds and actual acoustic communication”.
Jorgewich-Cohen said the researchers had indeed set out to identify sounds animals made specifically for communicating, by comparing video and audio recordings to find matches for particular behaviour.
They also recorded the animals in different groups “so we could tell if there are sounds that are only produced in specific situations”, he said.
He acknowledged that some species were hard to study as they do not vocalise frequently and “tend to be shy”, adding that further research was needed.
© 2022 AFP
The OnePlus 10T won’t have a mute switch — here’s why
The OnePlus 10T isn’t due to launch until August 3rd, but it wouldn’t be a OnePlus phone if the company didn’t reveal a few details early. Today, we’re getting a look at the device’s exterior design, which reveals a couple of interesting (and, depending on your viewpoint, potentially disappointing) changes compared to its predecessor. Although the 10T’s overall design is similar to that of the OnePlus 10 Pro, there’s no alert / mute slider this time, nor is there any sign of the Hasselblad branded-camera system found on recent OnePlus flagships.
The alert slider has been a staple of OnePlus’ flagship phones for years, offering a quick and easy way to put its phones into silent and vibrate modes without having to tap through any onscreen menus. In an email interview with The Verge, OnePlus chief designer Hope Liu said that ditching the slider was necessary for the 10T to have enough internal space for other components needed for “high wattage charging, a large battery capacity, and better antenna signal.”
For example, to offer the kinds of fast charging speeds that OnePlus is targeting with the 10T (it’s yet to announce the spec officially, but leaks suggest that the OnePlus 10R’s 150W fast charging could make an appearance), Liu says OnePlus had to include two “charging pumps” inside the 10T, compared to just one for the 80W fast charging-compatible OnePlus 10 Pro. The company also prioritized an antenna system that includes 15 separate antennas inside the OnePlus 10T, which it says improves signal when holding the phone horizontally — a benefit when playing games online.
“While the alert slider appears to be a very small component, it actually has a relatively large impact on the device’s motherboard area — taking up 30 mm²,” Liu says. “To ensure the OnePlus 10T delivers in the areas we know our users value most… while retaining the alert slider, we would have had to stack the device’s motherboard, which would have made the device thicker.” Removing the slider was the compromise OnePlus decided to make.
Another difference compared to the 10 Pro is the lack of a Hasselblad-branded camera system — though, given the minimal impact it’s had on OnePlus’ other phones, we’re not too concerned about the omission here. OnePlus’ partnership with the camera company kicked off with last year’s OnePlus 9 Pro and mainly involved tuning the colors from the camera. This year, it added new features like support for 12-bit RAW photographs with this year’s phone. They’re neat additions but not mainstream essentials.
When I ask Liu why the Hasselblad branding had gone, he tells me it’s because OnePlus “wanted to offer an ultimate performance flagship smartphone at the device’s chosen price point,” which makes it sound like it was a necessary compromise to reach the phone’s (as yet unannounced) price tag. But Liu confirms that the 10T’s main camera will use a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor (which is technically higher resolution than the 48-megapixel main camera from the 10 Pro) and will support shooting in 10-bit color, as well as “improved HDR photography” and OnePlus’ night photography mode.
Other features Liu is willing to confirm include a 6.7-inch display for the 10T. Resolution and refresh rate have yet to be announced, but from the images, this appears to be a flat display rather than one that curves around the edges of the device. Liu also says the phone will be available in a matte black color as well as a glossy green. OnePlus previously said the phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor.
That’s all Liu is willing to confirm for now. For a full announcement, we’re going to have to wait for the OnePlus 10T’s official launch on August 3rd at 10AM ET.