"If you think of the way you got through your daily life noticing things visually, whales have a different perspective: they notice things acoustically first. They can use vision, but they probably use it as a backup the way we use sound."
-- Susan Parks, bioacoustics researcher, on the impacts of rising ocean background noise on whales' ability to communicate. Parks hosted this week's Research Unplugged conversation Wednesday afternoon.
Video footage of the event will be available on YouTube, and a full podcast of the event will be available on iTunesU and the Research Penn State website www.rps.psu.edu.
Research Unplugged is a free conversation series that features Penn State professors discussing their work with the public. The series includes six Wednesday lectures; each runs from noon-1 pm at the Penn State Downtown Theatre Center (146 S. Allen Street), State College, Pa. This semester's final topic, on Nov. 17, is "Chopin and the Romantic Imagination: A Lecture/Recital Commemorating Chopin's Bicentennial," featuring music historian Eric McKee and pianist Mi-Jin Lee.