There is a discussion going on concerning the treatment of dolphins in captivity based on suggestions that their high intelligence places them in more morally and ethically objective circumstances like, for example, confining dolphins to perform in marine parks or to swim with tourists at resorts and may be “potentially psychologically harmful to dolphins and present a misinformed picture of their natural intellectual capacities.”

At first this sounds kinda hokey, but Emory University neuroscientist, Lori Marino, is making her opinion heard when she spoke on the anatomical basis of dolphin intelligence at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference (AAAS) in San Diego, on Feb. 21, 2010

Here are some other points she’s made:

• Many modern dolphin brains are significantly larger than our own and second in mass to the human brain when corrected for body size
• Some dolphin brains exhibit features correlated with complex intelligence, including a large expanse of neocortical volume that is more convoluted than our own, extensive insular and cingulated regions, and highly differentiated cellular regions
• Dolphins are sophisticated, self-aware, highly intelligent beings with individual personalities, autonomy and an inner life. They are vulnerable to tremendous suffering and psychological trauma

Source: Science Daily
Image: Flickr, Creative Commons, By Attribution

Unfortunately aligned with a reference currently made in the strip, CBC News Online YouTube channel reports on a tragedy of a Sea World killer whale killing one of its trainers.

A killer whale grabbed and drowned a veteran trainer at Sea World in Orlando, Fla., during a routine show. As Kelly Cobiella reports, this is the third death of a person connected to this whale.

It sucks hearing that this kind of stuff can happen–but I have to wonder sometimes at the rationality behind thinking we as humans can control any creature not meant to be controlled. Unpredictability with a creature this size and power is always something that threatens a human’s safety when they are within its proximity.

I watched this on YouTube and wondered when the heck something like this was made. I wanted to convince myself that that actor–oh what? You thought it was a REAL zombie… sheesh, sorry–was actually man-handling that shark or not. Animal activists would have torn that zombie–er actor–apart.

So I did some digging and here’s what I discovered for the folks who are interested in “being in the know” and all that goodness.

This clip is from a movie titled “Zombi 2″, released in 1979. Here’s the lead paragraph found on Wikipedia:

Zombi 2 (also known as Zombie, Island of the Living Dead, Zombie Island, Zombie Flesh Eaters and Woodoo) is a 1979 zombie horror film directed by Lucio Fulci. It is the best-known of Fulci’s films. The movie made Fulci a horror icon. Despite the fact that the title alludes to the film being a sequel to Zombi (the Italian title of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead), the films are unrelated. When the film was released in 1979, it was scorned for its extremely bloody content notably by the at the time Conservative British Parliament.

Going a bit deeper into the Wikipedia page it becomes clear that an actual tiger shot was used. Supposedly the shark had a “trainer who had to fill in for the actor” and the actor couldn’t “be there the day of the filming”… these things tell me something very relevant: The trainer is clearly insane and the actor is brilliant to have come up with an excuse.

Looks like this memorable fight was captured by artist Jeffery Zornow and turned into a t-shirt print. The sketch (which I found listed for $300), some studies found on Fright Rags (in an article mentioning how it all come about due to a message board tread on Rue-Morgue) and the print of the shirt are shown below.

The huge oarfish has been filmed by scientists operating a tiny submarine by remote. This may be the first time this fish is filmed, or even seen, in its natural environment. The King of Herrings is believed to be the creature behind the ancient myths about gigantic sea serpents. It has a prominent dorsal fin, almost like the continous spikes of a fairytale dragon.

The scientist in the video goes on about the details behind the experience.

[Wikipedia: Oarfish that washed ashore on a Bermuda beach in 1860. The animal was 16 feet (4.9 m) long and was originally described as a sea serpent.]

News Source: Aquatic Community

These strips are from January 2009 but since they make an obvious commentary on Aquaman’s powers, it’s enough to feature them here for a chuckle. Click on them to be taken to the Sheldon webcomic site to read them.