Written by Jacob Van Gundy | issued
Ten years later, a mysterious sound was heard emanating from the Mariana Trench. The strange noise, which researchers describe as a “biowan,” was first heard coming from a deep-sea canyon in 2014, and scientists have long speculated about its source. Recently, through some luck and new AI technology, a team of oceanographers was able to identify the noise.
The “biotwang” of the Mariana Trench is a strange, otherworldly combination of sounds that people associate with animals and sounds that they don’t. It starts with a low, growling sound, followed by a high-pitched noise that sounds mechanical to many people. Lauren Khalil, a member of the team that solved the mystery, compared the higher-pitched sound to the sound made by the Enterprise. Star Trek.
This technology, which helped solve the mystery of the Mariana Trench, could be a great asset to oceanographers working on other studies.
Many people felt that the sounds coming from the Mariana Trench were unnatural, but the common theory among oceanographers was that they were the sounds of whales. Unfortunately, confirming that theory has been extremely difficult as it requires researchers to observe the animal with their own eyes as it encounters the sounds and connect the two sounds. Against all odds, the team was able to do just that.
A fortunate opportunity led the research team to discover a pod of Bryde’s whales near the Mariana Trench. A rare whale was heard making a unique sound, which the team recorded. There were a total of 10 whale sightings during the research trip, and sounds were heard during all but one sighting, firmly linking sightings to noise.
Many people felt that the sounds coming from the Mariana Trench were unnatural, but the common theory among oceanographers was that they were the sounds of whales.
Of course, the researchers didn’t immediately identify the Bryde’s whale call as the mysterious Mariana Trench sound. When the research team tried to find a match to the audio, they were faced with a database of more than 200,000 hours of recordings. Anne Allen, one of the researchers who made the discovery, claims her father suggested she turn to Google for help when she was overwhelmed with data.
Anne Allen followed her father’s advice and asked Google to help with the project, which ultimately led to the mystery of the sound in the Mariana Trench. Using AI trained to convert audio files into spectrograms and compare the results to find patterns, the team was able to link the whale to the ‘Biowang’. Thanks to AI tools, it is now possible to make this association. Otherwise, manual comparisons would have taken hundreds of thousands of hours, an almost impossible task.
While the depth of the Mariana Trench remains a mystery in many ways, the mystery behind the chilling “biowan” sound has finally been solved.
This technology, which helped solve the mystery of the Mariana Trench, could be a great asset to oceanographers working on other studies. In addition to linking that particular whale population to sounds from a decade ago, it also helped the team track whale movements through other sound recordings. This tracking capability could help scientists chart the effects of environmental factors on specific animal populations.
While the depth of the Mariana Trench remains a mystery in many ways, the mystery behind the chilling “biowan” sound has finally been solved. A combination of hard work, new technology, and luck led to breakthrough discoveries that could help future oceanographers solve similar mysteries faster. Google has open sourced its sound identification AI tool. That means the next time a mysterious noise is picked up in the deep ocean, researchers will have a new way to track its source.
sauce: scientific american
