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Dolphins and their language. The science of dolphin therapy What science studies dolphins

In the 1960s, scientists tried to teach dolphins the English language by giving them LSD. The animals never learned to speak English. Source: Jastrow, 2008

Dolphins are unique creatures. And there are no others like them on Earth. These are aquatic mammals with amazing abilities: they are disinterested, always come to the rescue, very musical and sociable. They seem to be much wiser than humans. Biological scientist Vera Mysina about the unsolved mysteries of dolphins.

The history of human-dolphin interaction is usually calculated from the moment of the first Sumerian-Semitic mentions of these animals.

The Sumerians identified the dolphin with the god of wisdom, the master of the world's oceans, from which the first man emerged in the form of a dolphin. In Greek mythology, dolphins have always accompanied the gods who patronize humans, and in Christian symbolism, the dolphin means rebirth or salvation.

Why do myths and legends of many peoples speak of the dolphin as a friendly, wise creature with unique intelligence and human qualities?

The first to try to answer this question were the ancient Greeks, who repeatedly mentioned the physiological characteristics of these animals in their treatises. Dolphins are very similar to us. They also breathe with lungs, the same four-chambered heart, almost the same brain weight with us, dolphins are also warm-blooded creatures, and even the sizes of adults vary similar to human growth - from 1.5 to 2 meters.

By the way, it was from the Greek word "delphos", meaning "brother" that these mammals began to be called dolphins. And dolphins became brothers because they more than once saved people during storms and shipwrecks, showed the way to the coast and even warned of danger!

Modern science, studying dolphins, continues to present more and more new facts about these incredible animals. I want to tell you about some of them today.

In a flock of dolphins, everyone is relatives, and their mutual assistance is much better developed than human help. Why? The thing is that dolphins never behave aggressively and indifferently towards their relatives. Together they help the dolphin weakened in the flock to stay near the surface so that it does not choke, bring him lunch, sing songs. Meanwhile, on land, doctors write whole "footcloths" in clinical psychology about the direct dependence of health on hostility, and in the subway, the voice cyclically reminds us that it would be nice to give way to someone who is more in need of this kind of little help.

Dolphins, like humans, have six levels of organization of sounds: there is a sound, a syllable, a word, a phrase, a paragraph, a context, in addition, they have their own dialects. Like humans, language is divided into body language and sound language. Despite numerous studies by scientists, no one has been able to fully decipher the language of dolphins until now. But, nevertheless, Soviet scientists made tremendous progress in this direction, systematizing more than 180 different sounds and signs using the Zipf method. It should be noted that a secret group of special forces divers, based in the years of the USSR near Balaklava, made a great contribution to the study of this issue. If a border guard fulfills combat missions with a dog, then the underwater special forces had a dolphin as his faithful friend. Moreover, the divers themselves note that dolphins sometimes offered such non-standard solutions to get out of an artificially simulated situation that they turned out to be much more effective than any human calculations.

Moving in groups, dolphins, like people, are guided by their "guide". In unfamiliar terrain, these mammals move in a very dense formation, which allows them to instantly hold the defense in case of danger. They focus only on the sounds of the presenter, and transmit information along the chain with the help of certain touches.

Recently, American scientists, according to BBC News, have come to the conclusion through numerous experiments and studies that each dolphin in a flock has its own unique name. It is given to the dolphin at birth and is a characteristic whistle, to which only one individual from the flock always responds. With the help of these whistles, a particular dolphin is addressed by its relatives.

Dolphins' "body language" in almost everything corresponds to the rules of human verbal communication. Communication with dolphins has a positive effect on the human body, especially on the child's psyche. Since 1978, the development and application of dolphin therapy began. Its essence lies in the fact that the patient is simply allowed to spend time with the animal, communicate and contact. Modern medicine does not find an explanation for many diseases, it also cannot yet explain how dolphins manage to positively influence many physical and mental diseases of a person, especially autism. But the very fact that dolphin therapy somehow increases immunity, helps the development of speech in children, heals from a number of autoimmune diseases, no one denies.

Dolphins, like people, give each other gifts. This incredibly romantic fact has been confirmed by ethologists studying dolphins in the Amazon Delta. Males, in order to attract attention and position the female, give gifts to potential partners. What gift can this "fish" give? In order for the female to accept for consideration the candidacy for the continuation of the offspring, one cannot do without a "bouquet" of river algae.

Dolphins easily and conflict-free communicate with all terrestrial animals. What is surprising here is that they also reciprocate them. Dolphins get the most positive emotions from communicating with dogs, and representatives of the feline family raise a lot of questions and suspicions.

Dolphins, like humans, understand that life is movement! They love active games and go in for sports! What is worth watching surfing dolphins?

Dolphins recognize themselves in the mirror image among other dolphins and objects.

In nature, only two species of mammals have sex, not only for procreation, but also for pleasure - these are humans and dolphins.

Man has learned a lot from the dolphin. Fishermen borrowed an echo sonar from a dolphin for sighting fishing, because dolphins never make mistakes when tracking the direction of movement of schools of fish. Scientists have developed acoustic "glasses" that can replace canes for blind people. Doctors have gained invaluable knowledge on the treatment of many diseases. On submarines, devices were used to accurately estimate the distance to any object under water ...

Since ancient times, dolphins have fascinated people, became his friends, and were worshiped by them as gods. This is evidenced by the numerous images of dolphins on the walls of Egyptian temples, frescoes of 1500 BC, in the Palace of Knossos.

Dolphins have a special place in Greek mythology. The word dolphin goes back to the Greek δελφίς (delphis), which in turn comes from the Indo-European root δελφύς (delphus), “womb”, “womb”, “womb”. The name of the animal can be interpreted as "newborn baby" (perhaps because of the external resemblance to an infant or because the cry of a dolphin is similar to that of a child).

Dolphins were also revered and loved on other continents. It's just that in the mythology of the Australian aborigines, dolphins were called gods at the time of dreams (the time of dreams is a description of the period before the creation of the Earth, when the physical, material world did not yet exist).

Most of the Australian Aboriginal tribes believe that all living things on Earth are a connection and constitute one large system that comes directly from their spiritual ancestors from the Time of Sleep). The Roman erudite writer Pliny the Elder and his nephew, the politician, writer and lawyer Pliny the Younger, talked about dolphins who, together with fishermen, caught fish, and often rescued drowning people.

For sailors, dolphins are angels of happiness, and often brilliant pilots. So a dolphin named Pelorus Jack helped sailors to avoid shipwreck and death more than once. Pelorus Jack appeared in the strait between the North and South Islands of New Zealand at the turn of the 19th century.

Although human interest in dolphins has been around for several millennia, human interaction with dolphins first became the subject of scientific study only in 1950 -1970, thanks to the research of John Lilly. The goal of Lilly's scientific research was to create a language of symbols and sounds that allows you to come into close contact with this species of marine mammals. Research has shown that long-term human interactions with dolphins have positive effects on the human brain and function of consciousness (Lilly, 1978). It was found that contact with dolphins has a clearly positive effect on the processes of consciousness, namely the expansion of perception. Quantitatively, this is expressed in an increase in sensitivity, greater concentration of attention and an increase in intellectual activity.

Inspired by the achievements of New York psychotherapist Boris Levinson, the founder of pet therapy, who began his research with dogs, in the UK Horace Dobbs (Dobbs, 1977, 1992, 2004), and in the USA, Dave Nathanson (Nathanson 1997, 1998) decided to study dolphins as pet therapists. In his work, Horace Dobbs, as a pioneer in dolphin therapy, described the case of an anorexic patient who was able to overcome her depression thanks to a dolphin living in the wild off the coast of England. In the mid-80s, in Key Largo (Florida), Natenson founded the Dolphin Therapy Center and thus became one of the main researchers of the effects of dolphins on the human body.

His so often cited works “Effectiveness of short-term dolphin-assisted-therapy for children with severe disabilities” and “Effectiveness of long-term dolphin-assisted-therapy for children with severe disabilities” disabilities “(the effectiveness of long-term interaction with dolphins for children with disabilities) was the first evidence of the positive effects of dolphin therapy. Concurrently, Batsy Smith has shown the positive effects of dolphin therapy on the emotional and cognitive abilities of people with autism (Smith 1984).

Modern research in the field of dolphin therapy by scientists Nicole Cohn and Rolf Yerter confirms the results of Natenson and the effectiveness of his therapy, abbreviated as DHT (Dolphin Human Therapie), as well as dolphin therapy in Eilat (Dolphin Reef, Israel). The general assessment of the results of dolphin therapy for children with special abilities, organized by the Dolphinswim Institute (Alpha Therapy Center, Yalta), confirms positive changes in violations of various etymologies, especially in aggression, social withdrawal and anxiety.

In the field of studying the effectiveness of dolphin therapy, one should first of all note the work of Lyudmila Lukina, a scientist from Ukraine. Already in the early 90s, Lyudmila Lukina scientifically substantiated the effectiveness of dolphin therapy for various disorders (Lukina, 2003). In her numerous works and publications (over the past ten years, more than 20 scientific publications on dolphin therapy have been published), the scientist examined in detail the influence of dolphin therapy on the dynamics of the development of various diseases.

Among other things, the impact of dolphin therapy on the functional development of children, rehabilitation of children with impaired neuropsychiatric etymology, chronic fatigue syndrome, enuresis, cerebral palsy, phobias, speech retardation, neurasthenia and RDA (early childhood autism).

In addition, the scientist was able to identify indicators (age, type and degree of impairment, psychological and mental characteristics of the disease) that determined the effectiveness of dolphin therapy.

The scientific study carried out at the Nuremberg Dolphinarium by Breitenbach von Fersen and Stumpf is the first longitudinal study. The study was carried out for 10 years on the territory of the Nuremberg Zoo. In the process of many phases of scientific research, the components of therapy were purposefully changed, the pros and cons were calculated. According to the results obtained, it turned out that dolphin therapy contributes to positive changes in the field of communication, social and emotional behavior and emotional stability of children, positive dynamics in the development of relationships in the mother-child dyad. Therefore, dolphin therapy is the most effective of all types of pet therapy.

Along with these discoveries, Breitenbach discovered a socio-pedagogical model of the therapeutic mechanism of dolphin therapy. According to this model, during the interaction with the dolphins, the client initiates processes that contribute to the improvement of communication skills and abilities, especially when the client interacts with his parents. Parents, in turn, learn to better understand their child's reactions. This so-called "snowball effect" explains the emergence of positive learning dynamics for the client much later than the dolphin therapy itself.

Dolphins succeed in this due to their adequate attitude towards people and their special social feeling, as well as communication skills. These basic abilities of dolphins are a consequence of their adaptation to the marine environment. Due to this, they have many skills and abilities that distinguish them from amphibian mammals.

Dolphins are naturally inquisitive creatures and can playfully and easily build interaction with people with and without restrictions. At the same time, their actions are purposeful - they demand and motivate their clients, taking into account their personal capabilities. So, for example, with physical limitations, the frequency and intensity of the dolphin's interaction with the affected area of the body increases.

At the same time, dolphins stimulate not only mental, but also neurological development of a person. So the EEG indicators during the interaction of a person with a dolphin showed a significant decrease in the frequency of brain waves to alpha waves and synchronization of the work of both hemispheres.

The sonophoresis theory of David Cole explains this effect by the action of ultrasound produced by a dolphin (SONAP). According to this theory, the ultrasound produced by marine mammals stimulates the inter and intracellular membranes, which in turn improves the metabolism and conductivity of the synapses.

Referring to the psychological aspects described by Breitenbach, dolphins have a positive effect on humans in the field of overcoming fears, in addition, they cause highly positive personal experiences that contribute to the creation of internal resources. We are talking about a process when initially the animal is the causative agent of fear, but later, due to the supportive effect of sonophoresis on the nervous system, the causes of fear are reduced and gradually eliminated.

Thus, dolphins help humans experience basic fears and then overcome them. In case of complete completion of this process, a person experiences positive emotions, which DeMares described in the following words: “The desire to meet a dolphin is based on the desire to be completely merged with another creature, with oneself. The feelings that arise in this case can be designated as unity, joy of life, harmony and contact of views. This state takes a person to the moment of truth, to a new point of reference against which he can measure his personal experience. "

An important topic in dolphin therapy is the topic of scientific indicators. This issue is the subject of research by Norbert Trompisch. In his research, the scientist examines the quality of changes caused by dolphin therapy in clients with autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, developmental delay and apallic syndrome. At the same time, it was found that the effect of therapy significantly depends on the nature of the manifestation of the disease.

So, people with autism spectrum disorders achieve results in the social sphere, people with Down syndrome and developmental delay - in the development of speech, clients with cerebral palsy - in the motor sphere, and each of them gains a sense of confidence and independence, overcomes their inner fears ...

The therapeutic effect in severe disorders, for example, with apallic syndrome, is not so significant.

These studies confirm the positive effects of interaction with dolphins and dolphin therapy on humans. Today dolphin therapy in scientific circles is considered as an effective therapeutic tool in the treatment and rehabilitation of people with various mental and physical limitations. Dolphin therapy has a particular impact on the development of social, communicative, cognitive spheres and the sphere of speech development.

As a result of interaction with dolphins, the ability to perceive new information develops, to cope with stress faster, positive resources are strengthened, fears decrease, in other words, the whole human body comes to harmony and balance. Nevertheless, there are still many questions about the effect of dolphin therapy on the physiology of the brain, about the role of ultrasound in therapy, and remain unanswered and require careful research and observation.

Previous scientific studies in the field of the effectiveness of dolphin therapy lacked a methodological approach, they lack the necessary assessment base, a system of scientific indicators characterizing this or that violation. The question of determining the factors of effectiveness in dolphin therapy is especially relevant today. In addition, the question of the spectrum of application of dolphin therapy in psychology and psychotherapy remains unexplored.

Of course, dolphin therapy as a science is fraught with many exciting questions and discoveries. We are talking about an interdisciplinary and integral approach, about a new scientific field of study at the intersection of psychology and zoopsychology, psychotherapy, pedagogy and marine bio and zoology and veterinary medicine, which is still an "uncharted virgin land" and offers young scientists a wide scope for crazy ideas and their incarnations!

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Chapter

Dolphins
and science

Dolphins have moved to the forefront of science over the past two decades. They turned out to be excellent laboratory animals that are calm about experiments and allow you to do various, sometimes very complex experiments on themselves. Dolphins have made many discoveries in various fields of knowledge.
The study of dolphins is closely related to the future of science and upcoming human practice.
As a new laboratory animal, the dolphin is very promising: it can be used to study important questions of physiology that are directly related to medicine, technology, hydrodynamics, bionics, etc. including electrostimulation of the brain with punching holes in the skull), for its remarkable acoustic, echolocation, hydrodynamic properties and many other valuable qualities, the dolphin is promoted to one of the first places in the list of experimental animals. There is confidence that the dolphin will play no less a role in future research than the “martyrs of science” - the frog and the dog - played in their time.
At present, the problems of hydrobionics are being actively developed on dolphins, where two main directions are distinguished: 1) hydrodynamic, including the study of the skin in order to create skins for high-speed vessels, and 2) echolocation.
The first, hydrodynamic, direction, in particular the structure and anti-turbulent properties of the skin, has already been partially considered in Chapter 7.
In the course of evolution, cetaceans moving in a dense aquatic environment developed an easily streamlined body shape, an elastic skin capable of delaying the appearance of turbulent pulsations in the boundary layer of water, a kind of locomotor organ - the caudal fin - was formed - an effective flapping propulsor, set in motion by strong muscles.
However, the problem of movement of cetaceans at a high speed was "solved" by nature only when two most important adaptations appeared - "self-regulation of the hydroelasticity of fins" and self-adjustment of the skin for fast swimming by means of damping. Self-regulation of fins - a previously unknown phenomenon - was discovered by Soviet scientists
S. V. Pershin, A. S. Sokolov and A. G. Tomilin in 1968 1 on the basis of versatile research carried out on five species of dolphins and three species of whales. These researchers found that in cetaceans there is an automatic (reflex) regulation of the elasticity of the fins, especially the caudal, depending on the swimming speed with the help of specific complex arteriovenous vessels, the common distribution node of the circulatory system and the special structure of the integumentary tissues of the caudal fin, including the covering of tendon heavy.

Although complex arteriovenous vessels in the fins of dolphins were discovered by one of the co-authors of the discovery about 20 years ago, the physiological purpose of these vessels was jointly established by the authors only in recent years. Self-regulation of the hydroelasticity of the fins allows cetaceans to move at great speed and catch up with nimble, high-speed fish and cephalopods, provides high maneuverability, the ability to make high jumps, sudden jerks, instant stops during a rush, etc. elastic properties of fins, and especially the caudal fin. During the fastest movement, the fins of dolphins have the greatest elasticity, while at rest they are relaxed. The discovery of the phenomenon of self-regulation of the hydroelasticity of cetacean fins creates the possibility of technical modeling of various devices and structures with adjustable elasticity and rigidity of some of their parts.

Another secret of the dolphin is the variable damping of its skin at different swimming speeds, which is the main adaptation of the cetacean skin to speed. Soviet researchers (V.V. Babenko, L.F. Kozlov, S.V. Pershin, 1972) showed that damping of the dolphin's skin is carried out mainly by the papillary layer, abundantly supplied with blood vessels and nerves. Each papilla of the skin, due to an increase or decrease in the lumen of blood vessels at different swimming speeds, has a variable elasticity. In general, throughout the skin, this creates optimal damping conditions in accordance with a particular swimming speed. Such regulation of variable damping is performed by animals reflexively.
When moving, a dolphin subtly uses in various combinations the means of reducing the hydrodynamic resistance of water and controlling the boundary layer on the surface of its body. It can capture the hydrodynamic pressure of the field of moving vessels.
The second main direction of hydrobionic research in cetaceans is echolocation. Dolphins are perfectly oriented in the aquatic environment with the help of their excellently developed sonar. In sound orientation, the directionality of the sounds they send is of no small importance.
In 1957, zoologists from the United States. K. Norris and W. McFarlan, describing a new species of porpoise from California, noticed that the frontal surface of its skull is similar to the shape of a parabolic mirror, and the soft parts above the jaw bones resemble a lens. The idea arose that the porpoise's head can concentrate sounds emitted by air sacs, as a reflector and focusing apparatus. This is how the hypothesis of a sound projector and an acoustic lens of dolphins was born, which beautifully explains the accuracy, aiming and range of echolocation. In the further development of this hypothesis, both American (Evans and Prescott) and Soviet researchers (A.V. Yablokov, V.M.Belkovich, E.V. Romanenko, with co-authors and others) took part.

Rice. 62.

Change in the shape of the frontal-nasal (fat) pad of the beluga whale: before (A) and at the moment (B) focusing. Photo by K. Ray.

The fact that the echolocating dolphin, when approaching its prey, shakes its head, as if aiming at the fish with its sound beam, indicates that the dolphins are sending sound waves in a directional way.
E. V. Romanenko, A. G. Tomilin and B. A. Artemenko conducted experiments in the summer of 1963 in a small bay of the Black Sea and with their help showed that the skull and soft tissues of the dolphin's head really concentrate sound vibrations and play the role of an acoustic searchlight and sound lens. Researchers have studied how the sounds of the cleaned skull and whole head of the common dolphin are concentrated in seawater at a depth of 1 m... For this, a sound emitter (a barium titanate ball) was placed in the area of the air sacs - to the bridge of the dolphin's skull. The emitter was connected to a sound generator operating at one or another frequency. The oscillations of the emitter were reflected from the anterior wall of the skull, passed through the soft tissues of the head into the water and were perceived by the receiver at 1.5 m from the emitter (fig. 60). The directionality of sound was investigated by rotating the dolphin's skull or head about the vertical axis in the horizontal plane. The receiver clearly showed the directionality of the sound, since the intensity of the sounds it received changed during the rotation of the skull. Tests have shown how the directionality of sounds formed by the skull and whole head of a dolphin changes depending on the frequency of acoustic radiation. It turned out that with an increase in frequency from 10 to 180 kHz the directionality of sounds caused by the concave anterior surface of the cerebral part of the skull and the soft tissues of the head clearly increases, and the sound field narrows (Fig. 61). Simultaneously, the American researchers Evans, Sutherland and Bale demonstrated the same pattern on the dolphin and bottlenose dolphin.
The main role of the concentrator of sounds is played by the skull, and the additional role is played by the soft tissues of the head. But the nasal sacs also help with this, since they act as reflective surfaces (see the ray path in Fig. 38). In the directionality of the signals, apparently, lies the secret of "ultrasonic examination" of objects by dolphins at different distances. Due to the change in the sound field, dolphins can even change the shape of the fat pad. The US scientist Carlton Ray in the New York Aquarium managed to photograph a beluga whale at the moment of sound focusing: in one case, the fat pad on its head was normally round, and in the other, it was pointed in shape (Fig. 62).
The formation of an echolocation apparatus and the new role of the skull as an acoustic reflector in toothed whales affected the uneven development of bones on the left and right sides of the head: the asymmetry, according to biologists K. Norris and F. sounds. The nasal passages, as can be clearly seen on the skull of the pygmy sperm whale, specialize: one as an airway, and the other for performing a sound signaling function. This explains the asymmetry of the toothed whale's skull, which has long remained a mystery to biologists around the world.
Toothed whales are adaptively modified locators, whose skull with soft parts, sound signaling apparatus and hearing organ have adapted to generate sounds, send them, perceive echoes, and analyze. All this left a very deep imprint on the features of the biology, anatomy and physiology of the group.
In recent years, in the United States, the study of echolocation and signaling of dolphins began to be carried out right at sea on pre-trained animals, obediently returning at the command of the experimenter. This has great advantages, since in aquariums and small reservoirs, the walls reflect sounds and interfere with the accuracy of measurements. Only work in a natural environment will make it possible to finally find out the range and accuracy of dolphins' location, as well as the effect of diving depth on the operation of their sonar. For this purpose, animals are trained to follow small submarines. For long-term observation of dolphins in the sea, new acoustic and television equipment is now used: a series of hydrophones, underwater television cameras, movie cameras, etc. When listening and recording sound, they create a special mode of a "silent vessel": work is carried out only with the engines turned off, pumps, refrigerators, etc. Hydrophones are carried away from ships on a cable up to 300 m and, to avoid the noise of waves, are placed at a depth of more than 10 m... They hope to obtain valuable results in the study of sound signaling by using sound imaging. This new scientific and technical direction, created by the Soviet acoustician L. D. Rosenberg, makes it possible to transform sounds into a visible image.

Use a separate sheet for answers to tasks 29-32. First write down the task number (29, 30, etc.), and then the answer to it. Write down your answers clearly and legibly.

BIOSPHERE

Biosphere (from the Greek. bios- life and sphaira- ball) - the shell of the Earth, the composition, structure and properties of which to one degree or another are determined by the present or past activity of living organisms. The term "biosphere" was first used by E. Suess (1875), who understood it as a thin film of life on the earth's surface, which largely determines the "face of the Earth." However, the merit of creating a holistic theory of the biosphere belongs to V.I. Vernadsky, since it was he who developed the idea of living matter as a huge geological (biogeochemical) force that transforms its habitat.

3) What component of the biosphere transforms the habitat?

Show Answer

1) E. Suess.

2) V.I. Vernadsky.

3) Living matter.

Using the table "Comparative composition of blood plasma, primary and secondary human urine", as well as using knowledge from the course of biology, answer the questions.

1) How many times does the concentration of urea in the secondary urine increase in comparison with its concentration in the primary urine?

2) What substance from the primary urine is completely absent in the composition of the secondary?

3) What is the reason for this phenomenon?

Show Answer

The correct answer should contain the following elements:

1) The concentration of urea in the secondary urine increases 60 times.

2) Glucose.

3) Glucose is actively absorbed into the body in the convoluted tubules

Hockey player Yaroslav trains in the morning for one hour. What order should Yaroslav make in the cafeteria during the day to compensate for the energy consumption of the workout?

Please note that Yaroslav needs to choose a dish with the highest protein content. He also loves the waffle cone very much.

When answering the question, use the data in the tables.

In the answer, indicate the energy consumption of the workout, the recommended meals, the calorie content of the lunch and the amount of protein in it.

Show tables

Table of energy and nutritional value of cafeteria products