Bubble Rap
A team of scientists studying humpback whales recently documented a new type of greeting from these giant mammals—a ring of bubbles, blown as they surface to approach a boat. Humpbacks, known for their friendliness, are the most vocal of all whales, producing a wide variety of moans, cries, groans, and snores to form “songs” lasting anywhere from 5 to 35 minutes. They’re also known to blow bubbles for a variety of reasons, a list that now includes attempting to communicate with humans, according to the study.
How Whales Use the Sounds They Make
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Humpback Whales: Gregarious Denizens of the Deep
© Comstock Images/Jupiterimages
Why Do Whales Sing?
E.R. Degginger/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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Date with History
Today is the anniversary of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling, as well as the birthday anniversary of Anne Frank.
On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state law that banned interracial marriage, ruling that it was unconstitutional under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, in the landmark Loving v. Virginia ruling. The case arose after Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a woman of African American and Native American ancestry, traveled from their residences in Virginia to Washington, D.C., to be married in June 1958. A month later, police entered the couple’s bedroom and arrested them for having violated the state’s ban on interracial marriage.
Anne FrankAnne Frank, the Jewish girl whose diary became a classic of war literature, was born on this day in 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam early in the Nazi regime, but in July 1942 the Franks were forced into hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. For two years the Franks and four other Jewish people lived in a secret annex. During that time, Anne chronicled the family’s day-to-day life in hiding. Her entries stopped on August 1, 1944, shortly before the Gestapo discovered the annex and sent the Franks to Auschwitz. Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945.
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