Scientists studying sperm whales have discovered that they communicate through a sort of "phonetic alphabet", enabling them to build a rough equivalent of what humans refer to as words and phrases. The study, published on Tuesday, involved sperm whales living around the Caribbean island of Dominica, describing how they communicate by squeezing air through their respiratory systems to make rapid clicks resembling Morse code, with sets of the noises making up the basic building blocks of language. Research showed the "expressivity" of sperm whale calls was bigger than previously thought, said Pratyusha Sharma, a lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications. "We do not know yet what they are saying. We are studying the calls in their behavioural contexts next to understand what sperm whales might be communicating about," she said.

Talking with dogs, decoding whale sounds and interpreting bird calls could all be possible in the coming years as artificial intelligence applications learn to translate different creatures' communications, animal researchers said. Scientists have started using AI tools to analyze vast quantities of data on various species' communications, ranging from sounds, postures, expressions and more, to determine if they can understand and talk to animals in human terms. "The door has been opened to using machine learning to decode languages that we don't already know how to decode," said Aza Raskin, who co-founded the Earth Species Project, a nonprofit aiming to develop AI models that let humans have "conversations" with animals. He predicts this will be possible within the next two years. "The plot twist is that we will be able to communicate [with animals] before we understand" them, Raskin told Scientific American.

Tom Mustill was kayaking with his friend Charlotte in Monterey Bay, California, when an animal three times the size of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex hurtled from the water and crashed down on their tiny craft. As the flying humpback whale fell upon them and their kayak was sucked beneath the waves, Mustill assumed he would die. Miraculously he and Charlotte found themselves gasping for breath, clinging to their capsized kayak. How had they survived a smash with a creature three times the weight of a double-decker bus? What happened next was almost as weird.

To understand the "clicks" sperm whales make to talk (stringing together a series of statements called "codas"), researchers have launched a five-year-long quest called Protect CETI. It'll be the most comprehensive attempt at interspecies communication ever, the team believes. CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) begins with the capturing and cataloging of millions of morse-code-like whale vocalizations. Video and audio tools will be used, and the data will be fed to an AI that uses natural language processing (the tech that brought us Siri and Alexa) to decode it. Cues from captured video will provide context to the conversations and, if all works according to plan, will bring researchers closer to a breakthrough than ever before.