Those durn whales keep gettin’ in the way of our ships! Fortunately, african drummers are here to help.

In attempting to unravel the chaotic rhythms of the sperm whale clicks, he was struck by the similarity between his underwater recordings and African tribal music. A Senegalese griot (drummer) confirmed the likeness and — amazingly — was able to pick individual whales … through their distinctive rhythmic structures.

From Clive Thomson’s Collision Detection blog, which also has lots of other interesting tidbits, like “Young people who use landlines are more conservative than those who use mobile phones”