Japanese scientists teach whale to talk

image: Wikimedia


Telegraph:

Scientists in Japan have given a beluga whale a vocabulary of three words, the first time a marine creature has been able to link a sound to an object and then repeat the sound as a 'word'.

Nack, a 23-year-old beluga whale at the Kamogawa Sea World aquarium in Chiba Prefecture, has been taught to make different noises for a bucket, diving goggles and a pair of diving fins, said Takashi Murayama, a professor at Tokai University who has been training the creature for the last five years.

The scientists were then stunned when Nack began to freestyle rap.