a fight. Who will put up a fight.” “OK. Everybody up!” The next moves are meant to disarm them, to stun them enough. “Don’t try to kick them in the groin. At least not at fist. They’re expecting that. Eyes first. Then groin. Then run.” She teaches us an additional move for groin kicking. “Get close to the them. Pretend you’re acquiescing. Without space between you, they can’t move you around. They can’t grab you well. You grab them by their shoulders. It gives you fulcrum. Then shoulder grab. Knee to the groin. Everybody try it on Bob.” Bob, our plastic version of foam-suited Ross. It’s scary to think that you have to get closer to your perpetrator in order to get away. We take turns, making an ever-tighter circle of women, grabbing Bob by the shoulder and kneeing him in the balls. We break apart, not quite sweaty from our work but kind of energized for a Friday night. Kind of like clubbing but without any men or beer. We sit back down to talk some more. Learning the language of these Amazonian river wolves meant studying five families of wild otters in Peru and three captive otter families kept in German zoos. Scientists recorded the otters’ different vocalizations and the contexts in which those sounds emerged. Then they compared the ways in which the wild and captive otters communicated with one another. Ultimately, the team classified and described 22 different adult otter noises, which is a few more than previous researchers had found. Some of the sounds, like the warning sound Hah!, are made by all age groups. Snorts are also an alert, and scientists think information about the severity of an approaching threat is encoded in the duration 82 |
nicole walker