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Extraordinary Human Abilities – Part 2: Echolocation
Echolocation is how bats fly around in dark forests – they emit a sound, wait for the echo to return, and use that sound of the echo in each ear plus the return time to work out where an object is and how far away. Surprisingly (well, maybe not on this list!), humans are also capable of using echolocation. Use of echolocation is probably restricted to blind people because it takes a long time to master and heightened sensitivity to reflected sound.
To navigate via echolocation a person actively creates a noise (e.g. tapping a cane or clicking the tongue) and determines from the echoes where objects are located around them. People skilled at this can often tell where an object is, what size it is, and its density. Because humans cannot make or hear the higher pitched frequencies that bats and dolphins use they can only picture objects that are comparatively larger than those ‘seen’ by echolocating animals.
People with the ability to echolocate include James Holman, Daniel Kish, and Ben Underwood. Perhaps the most remarkable and well-documented of cases is the story of Ben Underwood, who lost both his eyes to retinal cancer at the age of three. He is shown in the video below (warning: the scene where he puts in his prosthetic eyeballs maybe a bit disturbing for some).
Still, it is worth checking it out!
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Awesome discovery of the week: Glass melts when it gets too cold
about 11 months ago - No comments
Anyone who’s seen enough old Sesame Street episodes or been to enough Renaissance Fairs knows that when glass gets hot enough, it turns to liquid. Applied heat pumps energy into the solid pieces of glass, getting their molecules jiggling. As the heat dissipates, the glass becomes cool and solidifies again.p
Glass melts when it gets too cold
Most of the time, not many interesting things happen once a substance gets below the temperature required for solidification. Its atoms are bound to one another, and without the introduction of some kind of energy, they’ll stay that way. Glass, it turns out, is the exception. Once it gets close to absolute zero, it melts again.
But what could make that happen? The atoms in glass chilled to near-absolute zero have almost no energy, so they can’t be jiggling fast enough to tear apart from each other. And yet, on paper and in computer simulations, glass returned to a liquid form when brought close enough to absolute zero.
The wild card turned out to be quantum mechanics. Once the atoms of glass became still enough, they stopped acting like particles and instead acted like waves. The wave-like atoms now were able to flow, moving through spaces too small for particles to get through. This motion, and this ability to fit through small spaces, causes ultra-cold glass to melt into a liquid. No word yet if this works on the T-1000.
How to Have a Lucid Dream – Wake up in a Dream – Part I
about 11 months ago - No comments
Lucid dreaming need not be elusive. Some simple techniques can make it possible for almost anyone.
Lucid dreaming
Lucid dreaming can be a very powerful experience for the dreamer. “You can be the absolute master of your dream world,” says MortalMist.com, a website and forum dedicated to lucid dreaming. “The very laws of nature can be bent and broken. No experience is beyond your reach, no feat too difficult or risky. If you can imagine it, you can make it happen.”
Many people report wonderful experiences in the dream worlds they’ve created. For some, though, lucid dreaming remains elusive. But there is good news; becoming skilled at “waking up” in a dream may be easier than it seems. There are several techniques that can be used to enter the world of lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming requires three things:
- the ability to recall dreams,
- a technique, known as a reality check, to become aware of dreaming, and
- strategies to remain in the dream.
Tips for Recalling Dreams
Everyone dreams, but not everyone remembers his or her dreams. Sometimes even people who revel in dream recall go through periods where they can’t remember dreams. But that doesn’t mean lucid dreaming is lost to those who have trouble remembering dreams.
Dream recall is a skill that improves with practice. In fact, improved dream recall can happen readily, and all it requires is lying in bed, according to Ryan Dungan Hurd, editor of DreamStudies.org and a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams.
Hurd suggests that people use the Snooze Method for Dream Recall. The name of the method may seem strange, but most find that it’s a fairly easy way to remember dreams.
He explains that when people wake up, they usually change their body position almost immediately. “This actually dispels the body’s emotional traces of the last dream….And it’s totally over for remembering dreams once we start thinking about the day ahead.”
Hurd believes that memory traces are not just stored in the brain; he says they can be stored virtually anywhere in the body. The lungs, the belly, and the heart are among the largest of these body-cognition centers, and they process memory and emotion. He notes that people can use this same natural capacity of the body to help remember dreams, too.
So, to improve dream recall, remain in position upon waking; avoid moving into a new position. Then, actively attempt to recall the dream. If no images come, one may try focusing on any emotional residue that the dream may have left behind.
Once the dream is remembered, record it in a journal kept near the bed.
NASA: Alertă de furtună geo-magnetică
about 11 months ago - No comments
NASA a emis o alertă de furtună geo-magnetică provocată de o masă uriaşă de particule solare degajate de două explozii recente.
Potrivit datelor de pe satelitul STEREO, plasma ejectată se deplasează cu o viteză de 410 kilometri pe secundă
Una dintre explozii, cea mai mare, s-a produs luni 14 februarie şi a trimis spre Pământ o masă însemnată de particule şi radiaţii. Imensa furtună solară declanşată poate afecta câmpul magnetic al Terrei.
Norul imens de particule încărcate electric se deplasează cu viteză spre planeta noastră, timpul parcurgerii distanţei fiind de aproximativ 24 de ore.
Explozia solară, cea mai puternică înregistrată în ultimii patru ani, a fost catalogată de astronomi ca aparţinând clasei X – cel mai puternic tip de pe scara de măsură. Ea este prima de acest fel din noul ciclu de activitate solară, început în 2011 şi cu un maxim estimat a se produce în 2013.
Profesorul doctor George Iana, şeful secţiei Radiologie şi imagistică medicală în cadrul Spitalului Universitar de Urgenţă Bucureşti, spune că, pentru a vorbi despre consecinţele acestui fenomen trebuie să ştim spectrul electromagnetic al benzii de radiaţii.
Dacă sunt semnalaţi fotoni – ceea ce pot preciza fizicenii, atunci există un potenţial iradiant.
Consecinţele sunt indirecte. În primul rând, populaţia trebuie să fie informată asupra concentraţiei de iradiaţii din atmosferă. Pentru că, în mod curent, există un fond de radiaţii. Dacă acesta este de 4-7 ori mai mare decât în mod curent, atunci pot fi afectate pielea şi organele vitale.
Efectele se înregistrează în timp, în special prin apariţia de malformaţii, aşa cum s-a întâmplat în cazul exploziei de la Cernobîl.
Dacă fenomenul este asociat cu lumină vizibilă înseamnă că există o concentraţie mare de energie care poate provoca arsuri ale pielii. Dacă fenomenul este însoţit de unde radio, acestea generează dureri de cap, stări de vomă, agitaţie, creşterea tensiunii arteriale.
Profesorul doctor George Iana consideră că, decomadată nu sunt motive de îngrijorare, dacă Inspectoratul pentru situaţii de urgenţă şi controlul mediului nu a emis avertismente. Totuşi, profesorul Iana recomandă femeilor însărcinate şi tinerilor să stea mai puţin afară în aceste zile.
Congenital Insensitivity To Pain – People Who Can’t Feel Pain – CIPA
about 1 year ago - No comments
CIPA or congenital insensitivity to pain is one of the rarest diseases in the world. A very rare condition and it is also known as congenital analgia. People diagnosed with this condition have their pain sensors turned off and they can’t feel any pain. The condition is extremely dangerous as these people are prone to danger not knowing the level of pain inflicted.
Congenital Insensitivity To Pain – People Who Can’t Feel Pain
What caused the disorder? It is an unknown condition when the brain that recognizes the pain does not connect to the nerves that sense the pain. This unknown condition only happens to the pain sensors. People with CIPA have their other sensory areas completely checked and normal. Incredibly a rare disease, 35 people in the United States is diagnosed with CIPA. Sadly, people with CIPA has low survival rate and many doesn’t live that long to the age of 25 making the case a difficult case to study.
Pains are relatively a unique sense. It keeps us out of trouble, our body defense against harmful actions and not being able to feel pain is totally dangerous. Children especially will need to know how to sense this pain. We need to know what we should or shouldn’t do when we feel pain and we also know how not to cause pain to ourselves. Pain can help you to avoid danger and what causing this danger.
Anhidrosis, a condition of the body’s inability to sweat is found in people with CIPA. This condition can worsen the issue. With Anhidrosis, people with CIPA are not able to feel extreme temperature. Together with this and the body’s inability to sweat only means that their body is unable to regulate its temperature.
Proper attention should be made to the children with CIPA. They need to be watched more often than the normal children and may need regular checks to the doctor to see whether they are not suffering from anything that they may not be aware of. To make sure that nothing is bleeding or there’s an open cut, they should be constantly checked since they are unable to differentiate this pain from other feelings.
In a case involving CIPA, a little girl who was three years old burnt her skin from a hot oven. The little girl put her hand on the hot oven and smiling with her blood all over the kitchen. The parents who found her were shocked. It is also known that when this little girl began teething, she shredded her own lips too.
Another case in China showed a perfectly healthy 10 year old boy with a body temperature of 43 degrees. In another case in Iraq, a boy who is awake for more than 2 years without sleeping. There are many of other cases of children with CIPA condition.
Congenital insensitivity to pain is very serious. Few people with CIPA do not live to see age 25 because these people can’t feel pain. They may catch simple illness and unknowingly catching few other simple illnesses along the way but was unable to get proper treatments since they can’t feel this pain. Their body too was unable to tell them and that’s why CIPA is the rarest disease in the world with no cure yet.
18 Health Tricks to Teach Your Body – Part I
about 1 year ago - No comments
Cure a Tickling Throat
Doctor Checking the Blood Pressure of a Patient
When you were 9, playing your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still appreciate a good body-based feat, especially if it serves as a health remedy. Take that tickle in your throat: It’s not worth gagging over. Here’s a better way to scratch your itch: Scratch your ear. “When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm,” says Scott Schaffer, M.D., president of an ear, nose, and throat specialty center in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. “This spasm relieves the tickle.”
Experience Supersonic Hearing
If you’re stuck chatting up a mumbler at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It’s better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech, according to researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. If, on the other hand, you’re trying to identify that song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones.
Overcome Your Most Primal Urge
Need to pee? No bathroom nearby? Fantasize about Jessica Simpson. Thinking about sex preoccupies your brain, so you won’t feel as much discomfort, says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., chief of male reproductive medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. For best results, try Simpson’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking” video.
Feel No Pain
German researchers have discovered that coughing during an injection can lessen the pain of the needle stick. According to Taras Usichenko, author of a study on the phenomenon, the trick causes a sudden, temporary rise in pressure in the chest and spinal canal, inhibiting the pain-conducting structures of the spinal cord.
Clear Your Stuffed Nose
Forget Sudafed. Here’s an easier, quicker, and cheaper remedy to relieve sinus pressure: Alternate thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger. This causes the vomer bone, which runs through the nasal passages to the mouth, to rock back and forth, says Lisa DeStefano, D.O., an assistant professor at the Michigan State University college of osteopathic medicine. The motion loosens congestion; after 20 seconds, you’ll feel your sinuses start to drain.
Fight Fire Without Water
Worried those wings will repeat on you tonight? Try this preventive remedy: “Sleep on your left side,” says Anthony A. Starpoli, M.D., a New York City gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at New York Medical College. Studies have shown that patients who sleep on their left sides are less likely to suffer from acid reflux. The esophagus and stomach connect at an angle. When you sleep on your right, the stomach is higher than the esophagus, allowing food and stomach acid to slide up your throat. When you’re on your left, the stomach is lower than the esophagus, so gravity’s in your favor.
Trichotillomania
about 1 year ago - No comments
Trichotillomania is hair loss from compulsive pulling or twisting of the hair until it breaks off.
Trichotillomania
Causes
Trichotillomania is a type of compulsive behavior. Its causes are not clearly understood.
It may affect as much as 4% of the population. Women are four times more likely to be affected than men.
Symptoms
Symptoms usually begin before age 17. The hair may come out in round patches or across the scalp. The effect is an uneven appearance. The person may pluck other hairy areas, such as the eyebrows, eyelashes, or body hair.
These symptoms are usually seen in children:
- An uneven appearance to the hair
- Bare patches or all around (diffuse) loss of hair
- Bowel blockage (obstruction) if people eat the hair they pull out
- Constant tugging, pulling, or twisting of hair
- Denying the hair pulling
- Hair regrowth that feels like stubble in the bare spots
- Increasing sense of tension before the hair pulling
- Other self-injury behaviors
- Sense of relief, pleasure, or gratification after the hair pulling
Exams and Tests
People with this disorder often will first seek the help of a doctor who treats skin problems (dermatologist).
A piece of tissue may be removed (biopsy) to rule out other causes, such as a scalp infection, and to explain the hair loss.
Treatment
Experts don’t agree on the use of medication for treatment. However, naltrexone and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have been shown effective in reducing some symptoms. Behavioral therapy and habit reversal may also be effective.
Outlook (Prognosis)
Typically, trichotillomania is limited to younger children who tend to outgrow the behavior. For most, the hair pulling ends within 12 months. Children who start pulling hair early (before age 6) tend to do better than those who start later.
Possible Complications
People can have complications when they eat the pulled-out hair (trichophagia). This can cause a blockage in the intestines or lead to poor nutrition.
Prevention
Early detection is the best form of prevention because it leads to early treatment. Decreasing stress can help, because stress may increase compulsive behavior.
Alternative Names
Trichotillosis; Compulsive hair pulling.
Möbius Syndrome
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Background
Möbius syndrome is due, in part, to loss of function of motor cranial nerves. Although von Graefe described a case of congenital facial diplegia in 1880 , the syndrome was reviewed and defined further by Paul Julius Möbius, a German neurologist, in 1888 and 1892. Because of these contributions, Möbius is now the eponym used to describe the syndrome. p
Möbius Syndrome
The definition and diagnostic criteria for Möbius syndrome vary among authors. Both von Graefe and Möbius accepted only cases with both congenital facial diplegia and bilateral abducens nerve palsies as constituting M ö bius syndrome. In 1939, Henderson broadened the definition and included cases with congenital unilateral facial palsy.
Other authors are more restrictive in attempts to eliminate conditions of a different pathogenesis being labeled as Möbius syndrome. These investigators require the presence of a congenital musculoskeletal anomaly in order to make the diagnosis. In most studies, Möbius syndrome is defined as congenital facial weakness combined with abnormal ocular abduction.
Pathophysiology
The complete pathophysiological description of Möbius syndrome remains elusive. Whether nerve, brainstem, or muscle aplasia is the primary event has not been established. Nerves that may be involved include cranial nerves (CNs) VI through XII, with general sparing of CN VIII. CN III and CN IV can be involved, but only rarely. The facial nerves (CN VII) are involved in all cases, the abducens nerves (CN VI) in a high percentage of cases (75%), and the hypoglossal nerves (CN XII) in only a minority of cases.
Numerous theories exist concerning the primary underlying pathogenesis. Möbius believed that the condition was degenerative or toxic in origin and that it involved the nuclei of the affected nerves. Some authors suggest that the underlying problem is an inherited congenital hypoplasia or agenesis of the cranial nerve nuclei. Approximately 2% of cases appear to have a genetic basis. In addition, theories of vascular etiologies of the syndrome have many proponents. One such theory involves disruption of flow in the basilar artery or premature regression of the primitive trigeminal arteries. A second vascular theory is a disruption of the subclavian artery supply that involves interruption of the embryonic blood supply. Still others view Möbius syndrome as a mesodermal dysplasia involving musculature derived from the first and second branchial arches. This theory holds that brainstem changes are secondary to retrograde atrophy of the cranial nerves.
Simultaneous limb malformations with cranial nerve dysfunction suggests a disruption of normal morphogenesis during a critical period in the development of the embryonic structures of these regions, most likely at 4-7 weeks of gestation.
Frequency
United States
Möbius syndrome is a rare disorder. Only approximately 300 cases have been described in the English-language literature. The prevalence in the United States is reported as 0.002-0.0002% of births, or 1 case per 50,000 newborns.
International
In a nationwide Dutch survey reported in 2003, the prevalence of Möbius syndrome was at least 0.002% of births (4 cases per 189,000 newborns) for the years 1996-1998.
Mortality/Morbidity
Feeding problems at birth and in infancy may be severe and often are aggravated by associated micrognathia. In severe cases, death may occur in the perinatal period, often as a result of respiratory or bulbar problems. Life expectancy may be normal in patients with less extensive brainstem involvement.
- In a series from the Hospital for Sick Children in London, England, 8 of 29 patients died over the course of 18 years. All deaths occurred shortly after birth. Four of the deaths were due to respiratory or bulbar problems.
- Another striking feature causing morbidity in persons with Möbius syndrome is the high incidence of associated congenital deformities. The most common deformity is clubfoot. Brachial deformities and pectoral muscle hypoplasia have been described.
- A congenital condition called the Poland sequence, characterized by partial or complete absence of the pectoralis muscles and breast and ipsilateral hand malformations, is concurrent with Möbius syndrome in approximately 15% of patients.
Race
No racial predilection is described.
Sex
Both sexes are equally affected.
Age
Möbius syndrome is congenital, and most cases are diagnosed during infancy. The disease is not progressive, and the patient’s presentation is generally based on the severity of the symptoms.
100 Very Cool Facts About The Human Body – Part VIII
about 1 year ago - No comments
Disease and Injury
Most of us will get injured or sick at some point in our lives. Here are some facts on how the human body reacts to the stresses and dangers from the outside world.
unicorn injury
- Monday is the day of the week when the risk of heart attack is greatest. Yet another reason to loathe Mondays! A ten year study in Scotland found that 20% more people die of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. Researchers theorize that it’s a combination of too much fun over the weekend with the stress of going back to work that causes the increase.
- Humans can make do longer without food than sleep. While you might feel better prepared to stay up all night partying than to give up eating, that feeling will be relatively short lived. Provided there is water, the average human could survive a month to two months without food depending on their body fat and other factors. Sleep deprived people, however, start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes after only a few sleepless days. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep is 11 days, at the end of which the experimenter was awake, but stumbled over words, hallucinated and frequently forgot what he was doing.
- A simple, moderately severe sunburn damages the blood vessels extensively. How extensively? Studies have shown that it can take four to fifteen months for them to return to their normal condition. Consider that the next time you’re feeling too lazy to apply sunscreen before heading outside.
- Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress. That high stress job you have could be doing more than just wearing you down each day. It could also be increasing your chances of having a variety of serious medical conditions like depression, high blood pressure and heart disease.
- A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been decapitated. While it might be gross to think about, the blood in the head may be enough to keep someone alive and conscious for a few seconds after the head has been separated from the body, though reports as to the accuracy of this are widely varying.
Spacetime invisibility cloaks can hide entire events inside temporal voids
about 1 year ago - No comments
Invisibility cloaks are taking baby steps from science fiction to science fact. But there’s an even stranger and more incredible possibility – an invisibility cloak that works in both space and time, shielding whole events from history itself.
ruby
The basic idea is surprisingly simple. We see things because our eyes are able to interpret information from visible light. That light travels at, obviously enough, the speed of light, which means we see things once light has traveled from them to our eyes. Technically speaking, we never see anything the exact instant happens – there’s always a time lag between the object and when we see it.
This is fairly well-known for anyone with an interest in astronomy. The Moon is one light-second away, the Sun a little over eight light-minutes away, the nearest star 4.3 light-years away, the nearest galaxy , and so on. There are time lags on even everyday distances, however impossibly slight. For something a meter away, we see it as it was about 1/300,000,000th of a second ago.
Here’s how you use that information to build a spacetime cloak. All those times are for the speed of light in a vacuum, but light can slow down depending on what material it passes through. Researchers have slowed down light to as little as 38 miles per hour by sending it through a special, super-dense form of matter. And it’s through carefully slowing down and speeding up light that we can create a temporal void.
cloak
Let’s say you’re standing a mile away from an observer. You start slowly decreasing the speed of the light traveling towards the observer so that it’s only traveling at 60 miles per hour, or a mile per minute. Since you’re slowing the light down gradually, the observer won’t be able to perceive the change. Once the light has reached 60 miles per hour, the observer is now seeing you as you were one minute ago. You’ve now created a one minute spacetime corridor. You’ve now got a minute to do whatever you want without the observer having any idea what you’re up to.
Once your minute is up, you switch off the machine slowing down the light, it speeds back up, and the observer now sees you again as you are right now – or at least as you were a nanosecond ago. That minute is a temporally compressed blip that the observer cannot perceive. That a basic version of the idea put forward by researchers at Imperial College London. Here’s their somewhat more technical explanation:
This process is thus utterly distinct from a spatial ‘object’ cloak, which instead achieves concealment by bending light around an object. The STC opens a temporary
corridor through which energy, information and matter can be manipulated or transported undetected. Once the concealed passage has been used, the STC closes by slowing the leading part of the light, whilst speeding up the trailing part, leaving no trace of the cloak, or the concealed events, on the field profile. To a distant observer, any non-emitting object whose presence persisted throughout the lifetime of the STC will have had a finite interval excised from its history. Any object which emits light during STC operation will have that part of its history temporally compressed so that, if not absorbed, it will appear to the observer as if occurring in a single instant.
Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘non-human persons’
about 1 year ago - No comments
Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.
Dolphins
Studies into dolphin behavior have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.
The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.
Dolphins have long been recognized as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children. Recently, however, a series of behavioral studies has suggested that dolphins, especially species such as the bottle-nose, could be the brighter of the two. The studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future.
It has also become clear that they are “cultural” animals, meaning that new types of behavior can quickly be picked up by one dolphin from another.
In one study, Diana Reiss, professor of psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York, showed that bottle-nose dolphins could recognize themselves in a mirror and use it to inspect various parts of their bodies, an ability that had been thought limited to humans and great apes.
In another, she found that captive animals also had the ability to learn a rudimentary symbol-based language.
Other research has shown dolphins can solve difficult problems, while those living in the wild co-operate in ways that imply complex social structures and a high level of emotional sophistication.
In one recent case, a dolphin rescued from the wild was taught to tail-walk while recuperating for three weeks in a dolphinarium in Australia.
After she was released, scientists were astonished to see the trick spreading among wild dolphins who had learned it from the former captive.
There are many similar examples, such as the way dolphins living off Western Australia learned to hold sponges over their snouts to protect themselves when searching for spiny fish on the ocean floor.
Such observations, along with others showing, for example, how dolphins could co-operate with military precision to round up shoals of fish to eat, have prompted questions about the brain structures that must underlie them.
When it comes to intelligence, however, brain size is less important than its size relative to the body.
What Marino and her colleagues found was that the cerebral cortex and neo-cortex of bottle-nose dolphins were so large that “the anatomical ratios that assess cognitive capacity place it second only to the human brain”. They also found that the brain cortex of dolphins such as the bottle-nose had the same convoluted folds that are strongly linked with human intelligence.
Such folds increase the volume of the cortex and the ability of brain cells to interconnect with each other. “Despite evolving along a different neuroanatomical trajectory to humans, cetacean brains have several features that are correlated with complex intelligence,” Marino said.
Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them.
Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, who has written a series of academic studies suggesting dolphins should have rights, will speak at the same conference.
“The scientific research . . . suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” he said.
