Motherfucker’s got moving candles!

It can almost certainly tell different species apart based on the shape of those air bladders. And it can tell if a fish has something weird inside it, like a metal hook. In Hawaii, false killer whales often pluck tuna off fishing lines, and “they’ll know where the hook is inside that fish,” Aude Pacini, who studies these animals, tells me. “They can ‘see’ things that you and I would never consider unless we had an X-ray machine or an MRI scanner.”

This penetrating perception is so unusual that scientists have barely begun to consider its implications. The beaked whales, for example, are odontocetes that look dolphin-esque on the outside—but on the inside, their skulls bear a strange assortment of crests, ridges, and bumps, many of which are only found in males.

Pavel Gol’din has suggested that these structures might be the equivalent of deer antlers—showy ornaments that are used to attract mates. Such ornaments would normally protrude from the body in a visible and conspicuous way, but that’s unnecessary for animals that are living medical scanners.’

I'm not sure if I ever shared this story before here, but in Curacao, when I was allowed to assist in a guest interaction programme, there was suddenly consternation in the pool behind us. A guest had entered the water and the dolphins were going crazy, paying no heed to the trainers anymore. The lead trainer that was with me gave the dolphins to me to watch over while she went to help. When she came back she told me what had happened. The guest that had caused so much uproar had left the water again and was asked if he had done anything to upset the dolphins. He hadn't, and he couldn't imagine what was wrong... until he mentioned he had a pacemaker. The younger dolphins in the pool had never seen someone with a pacemaker before and apparently it rocked their world.

One of the main things a resident is expected to do is teach interns and students. And Mohan is interestingly pretty bad at this. I just watched the episode where Santos says one awkward thing to a patient. She’s a new intern and she didn’t handle a patient’s overwhelming emotions perfectly. She wasn’t particularly bad, just not ideal. This isn’t surprising. This is a learned skill for many people.

Mohan takes Santos out of the room and dresses her down her in the middle of the hall. She doesn’t invite a conversation where Santos can reflect and learn. Samira speaks over Santos, shames her, and lectures her. She does the same with Whitaker and the sickle cell patient when she shames him in the middle of the hall rather than encourage him to learn from a common mistake. Both times she’s right in pointing out what her trainee did wrong, but she’s so aggressive and condescending that she’s going to alienate her trainees rather than let them reflect and grow from her feedback. Then she lets Santos take the fall for her mistake with the hyponatremia patient, which is quite a choice for a resident to make.

+ the quick warm up :)

Detail of Antonello da Messina, San Sebastiano, oil on panel, c. 1478.