• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Why Late-Night Fish Chatter is Just a Lot of Gas

Posted on: Saturday, 2 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

IT may not appear to be among the more significant discoveries in marine biology, but Scottish researchers have received one of science's more unusual awards - for proving fish communicate by breaking wind.

Dr Robert Batty, of the Scottish Association of Marine Science, is now the proud recipient of an Ig Nobel Prize, Harvard University's annual spoof on the Nobel awards, which are revealed next week.

The Ig Nobels celebrate the amusing, the bizarre and the plain pointless scientific achievements of the year.

Dr Batty's research, which involved a study of herring, discovered that, while flatulence may be regarded as a faux pas in polite society, in the fish world "raspberry-blowing" sessions appear to form an important communications role.

He suspects hearing the expelled bubbles helps them locate each other and thus form protective shoals at night.

His findings, published in the science journal Biology Letters, reveal that the herring create high-frequency sounds by releasing the air, a pheno-menon known as Fast Repetitive Tick, or FRT.

He received his Ig Nobel Prize for biology at Harvard University on Thursday night. Dr Ken Jones, deputy director of the association's research station, based near Oban, said: "The feeling here is that these prizes are awarded to highlight what you might call amusing stories but which have a strong underpinning science background. We're very proud."

Among those honoured this year were the UK arm of Coca-Cola for its short-lived entry into the bottled water market. Its Dasani brand became a PR disaster when it was disclosed the water came straight from the tap.

The prize for medicine was awarded to American re-searchers Steven Stack and James Gundlach for their discovery of a link between country music and suicide. They found a connection between the number of country songs on local radio stations and the suicide rate of urban whites.

Jillian Clarke, a Chicago pupil, won an award for an investigation into the "five-second rule". This states that if food falls to the floor for less than five seconds, it is safe to pick up and eat. The prize for engineering was awarded posthumously to Frank Smith from Florida, for his patented method of covering up a bald spot by growing and combing what is left of your hair in a particular way. It is not known if Sir Bobby Charlton is planning to sue.

More News in this Category