In the early 1970s, engineers listening for Russian submarines started detecting strange underwater signals. Using ...

The most common word is used twice as often as the second most common word, three times as often as the third most common ...

For all the world’s linguistic diversity, human languages still obey some universal patterns. These run even deeper than ...

Humpback whale songs share structural similarities with human language, suggesting complex communication patterns.

All known human languages display a pattern known as Zipf’s law. Now, researchers have found the same pattern in whale song.

The sounds that make up humpback whale songs follow some of the same statistical rules seen in human languages, which may be ...

"Whale song is not a language; it lacks semantic meaning. It may be more reminiscent of human music, which also has this statistical structure, but lacks the expressive meaning found in language." ...

Scientists have discovered that human language and whale songs have remarkable similarities in the way they are segmented and ...

A new immersive art installation highlights the effects humans have on ocean ecosystems, and whales in particular.

On the other hand, humpback whale song could be comparable to human music, which also lacks semantic meaning while still adhering to Zipf’s law. But that doesn’t make the study less exciting.