These nomadic people can see like dolphins and hold their breath twice as long as you.
When your entire culture lives on the water, you develop some cool abilities.
Every little kid has wanted to be a fish.
Or a dolphin. Or a shark. Or some sort of spectacular underwater creature, at least once.
We all did it. Glub-glub-glubbin' with our hand-gills underwater, only to end up disappointed when everything beneath the surface of the waves looked all blurry and weird and we were forced to come back up for air.
GIF from "Full House."
But in Southeast Asia, there are a few incredible kids who are closer than the rest of us to achieving these aquatic dreams.
The Moken people can be found spread around the archipelagos of the Andaman Sea off the western coast of Thailand. They're just one of several nomadic Southeast Asian cultures that are sometimes referred to by the problematic name of "sea gypsies."
There are estimated to be between 2,000 and 3,000 Moken although no official records exist. Their people are born on the sea, spend most of their lives on handmade wooden boats called kabangs, and go back out to the sea to die.
Moken children even learn how to swim before they walk so that they can help the rest of the tribe by diving for shellfish and eels and other underwater creatures they can eat or sell to survive. But they're only able to do this because of a special advantage: They can see clearly underwater and hold their breath for twice as long as the rest of us.
GIF from BBC/YouTube.
But it's not some rare Atlantean mutation; it's just another way of controlling their muscles.
A 1999 study from the University of Lund in Sweden aimed to uncover the secret of this uncanny skill. Was it evolution? Mutation? Or maybe just a simple body hack that the rest of us can learn from?
The lead researcher, Anna Gislén, integrated herself into the Moken community to study their habits and measure their sight. She discovered that the Moken children were able to see twice as well underwater as European children by simply shrinking their pupils to increase the depth of field and muscularly changing the shape of their eye lenses. It's the same way dolphins are able to see underwater. The Moken children could also willfully decrease their heart rates, allowing them to hold their breath for twice as long.
GIF from BBC/YouTube.
That means that, in theory, anyone can learn how to control their bodies to achieve these amazing underwater adaptations.
In a later stage of her research, Gislén brought a group of European children with her to Thailand — and after 11 sessions over the course of a month, their underwater eyesight improved as well.
“It was different for each child, but at some point their vision would just suddenly improve,” Gislén told the BBC. “I asked them whether they were doing anything different and they said, ‘No, I can just see better now’.”
That being said, the European children were more prone to red eye and other irritations after prolonged exposure to the saltwater with their newly adapted eyes. This suggests that the Moken children might have some unique evolutionary bonus after all.
GIF from BBC/YouTube.
Even more surprising is that adults appear to lose this special ability.
"When we age, our lenses become less flexible, so it makes sense that the adults lose the ability to accommodate underwater," Gislén said. This could explain why the adults tend to spear fish from their boats while the adaptable children dive down to the sea floor.
But now the Moken culture is in danger of disappearing, and their amazing aquatic abilities could die out with them.
Ever since the deadly tsunami that ravaged the Indian Ocean in 2004, it's been increasingly difficult for the Moken to compete with depleted resources and the encroaching modernization of seaside resorts. While the Thai government has tried to help the people recover from this natural disaster with housing and job training, their altruism has come at the cost of tradition — and, by extension, their incredible underwater abilities.
"You want to help keep people safe and give them the best parts of modern culture, but in doing so they lose their own culture," Gislén said. "They just don’t spend as much time in the sea anymore, so I doubt that any of the children that grow up these days in the tribe have this extraordinary vision."
"Moken are supposed to travel, to be nomadic, to travel freely. So if we cannot travel freely, we are dead, culturally at least," said Hong, a Moken community leader, in an interview with The Guardian. "Moken children use mobile phones, study English and choose to be educated. We've abandoned our old traditions so much we risk losing them entirely."
Moken adults lament Thailand's new ID laws. GIF from Freedive UK/YouTube.
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."