You know how it is when you’re reading through your newsfeeds, and you find an article that makes you go, “Ohhhh yes, I have to blog about that”? Well, so it was with me and a story today from Australian newspaper, The Age.
Apparently, scientists down under are harnessing the power of the humble mobile phone to help them work out exactly what koalas are saying to each other, when they bellow, a sound that echoes through Australian forests, in springtime.
You may be wondering how they’re going to use mobile phones for that, but basically, as far as I can work out, they use a network of audio sensors, that pick up and record the sounds of koalas bellowing. Those sensors have basically got bits of mobile phones built into them, so they then fire the recordings back to the scientists’ research station (which I like to think of as Koala Central), for analysis.
So, using the technology from mobile phones, researchers will finally be able to answer the question of whether the bellows are male koalas yelling “get off my gum tree” to other male koalas, or going “hey baby, how you doin’?” at female koalas.
With the help of mobile phones, koala research has hit the 21st century!
But that’s not why I did this blog post.
I did this blog post because (and I challenge you not to find this image funny), when I read the original story, I couldn’t get the image of a koala using a Nokia N96 out of my head, and I laughed about it for about 25 minutes…
Oh, and as a public service announcement, remember folks, koalas may look fuzzy, but they’re vicious little blighters. And they’re nothing compared to dropbears……
You may not be able to eavesdrop on koalas with it, but if you want to see koalas in glorious, crisp video, you need the Nokia N96 multimedia phone.
