{"title":"Matt Morgan: Pods and wards—flipping through rotations","authors":"Matt Morgan","doi":"10.1136/bmj.q2022","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Some readers may remember Kathy. She filled my childhood Sunday afternoons as the main character in my favourite television show. She wasn’t a doctor; she wasn’t even a human. Kathy was an intelligent dolphin who helped solve local crimes like an underwater version of Lassie , in the 1960s series Flipper . But Kathy’s story had a difficult end because of the isolated, captive environment she lived and worked in. Dolphins, particularly bottlenose dolphins like Kathy, live in “fusion-fission” societies. These social structures have fluid group membership, with individuals frequently changing affiliation. Dolphins swim with one pod for a while before switching to a very different group, forming new alliances and relationships. This dynamic social structure allows them to adapt to changing environments, learn new skills, find mentors, and …","PeriodicalId":22388,"journal":{"name":"The BMJ","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The BMJ","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2022","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Some readers may remember Kathy. She filled my childhood Sunday afternoons as the main character in my favourite television show. She wasn’t a doctor; she wasn’t even a human. Kathy was an intelligent dolphin who helped solve local crimes like an underwater version of Lassie , in the 1960s series Flipper . But Kathy’s story had a difficult end because of the isolated, captive environment she lived and worked in. Dolphins, particularly bottlenose dolphins like Kathy, live in “fusion-fission” societies. These social structures have fluid group membership, with individuals frequently changing affiliation. Dolphins swim with one pod for a while before switching to a very different group, forming new alliances and relationships. This dynamic social structure allows them to adapt to changing environments, learn new skills, find mentors, and …