Tuesday, December 25, 2012

World's Rarest Whale Found on Beach | Synopsis

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World's Rarest Whale Found on Beach

Humpback Whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Pectoral Fin Close-up 29 July 2010 baleen whale rorqual species with barnacles and water drops and droplets
Humpback Whale, Megaptera novaeangliae Pectoral Fin Close-up 29 July 2010 baleen whale rorqual species with barnacles and water drops and droplets by mikebaird
License (according to Flickr): Attribution License
Excerpt:

It is safe to call it the globe 's rarest whalespecies-- so rare that when a mom and calf became stranded and perished on a New Zealand beach in 2010, researchers did not think they had anything unusual. Now they have actually done DNA typing and further investigation, they report today in the diary Current Biologythat the two were spade-toothed beaked whales, a species never ever actually seen by researchers before. "This is the first time a spade-toothed beaked whale has been seen as a complete specimen, and we were lucky enough to find two of them," stated lead expert Rochelle Constantine at the University of Auckland in a declaration to accompany the paper. "Up until now, all we have known about the spade-toothed beaked whale was from three partial skulls collected from New Zealand and Chile over a 140-year period," stated Constantine.

People:

Rochelle Constantine

Overall Sentiment: 0.0840065

Relevance: 0.860163

SentimentQuote
-0.159025“Based on the scarcity of records and the total absence of previous sightings, this species is the least known species of whale and one of the world’s rarest living mammals,” write Constantine ...
0.361161“This is good reminder,” said Constantine, ...
0.0922799“This is good reminder,” said Constantine, “of how large the oceans are, and of how little we know about them.”
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 3
  • Aggregate Sentiment: 0.2944159
  • Mean: 0.098138633333333
  • Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731

Kirsten

Overall Sentiment: -0.685977

Relevance: 0.429319

SentimentQuote
0.0829059“It is remarkable that we know almost nothing about such a large mammal.”The mother and her 11-foot-long male calf were buried in the sand after they were found, and tissue samples were sent to the university as a matter of routine.  Six months later, Constantine and a colleague, Kirsten Thompson, finally got around to doing a DNA test — and found they had something never before tested. “Kirsten and I went quiet. We were pretty stunned,” she said ...
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 1
  • Aggregate Sentiment: 0.0829059
  • Mean: 0.0829059
  • Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731

Kirsten Thompson

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.345265

Key:

  • Aggregate Sentiment is meant to be an indicator of an individual's overall sentiment.
  • The Mean is meant to be an indicator of an individual's average comment sentiment.
  • The Standard Deviation, when there are enough quotes, will indicate an individual's consistency of sentiment (i.e. a Standard Deviation of 0 would mean they were very consistent in their sentiment and 1 would mean they were very inconsistent).

Note that quote stats are likely to be meaningless beyond the aggregate score due to the tiny sample size. However, they are always provided just in case you find something useful there.

Additional Info:

FieldTerminology: DNA test

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.305707

Organization: University of Auckland

Overall Sentiment: 0.13823

Relevance: 0.341596

Country: New Zealand

Overall Sentiment: -0.342432

Relevance: 0.345095

Disambiguation: Organization | Location | HumanLanguage | Region | AdministrativeDivision | CompanyDivision | GovernmentalJurisdiction | KingdomReferences:
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