Well, it's been six months and the news cycle has come around again to the same squiddy topics: a new TV show about giant squid, and the question of whether squid can hear.

The giant squid documentary, which was supposed to come out in 2010, is a wee bit behind schedule. The new news is that the Japanese broadcaster NHK is partnering with Al-Jazeera Children's Channel in this venture. That's a cool collaboration! Nothing brings the whole world together like a fascination with giant squid.

In 2009, NHK said it was working on a series called Giant Squid: Last Mystery of the Deep with Science Channel, UK indie Atlantic Productions and marine biologist Dr Tsunemi Kubodera.

With JCC now onboard, the show will try to capture the elusive giant squid in its natural habitat for the first time, according to NHK and JCC, and to shed light on other exotic beasts inhabiting the unexplored ocean depths.

Meanwhile, squid hearing is being covered all over based on a hot new article that came out in the Journal of Experimental Biology in October. Mooney and colleagues showed that squid can perceive sound as waves passing through the water and physically jostling them.

Their results showed that squid can only listen in at low frequencies of up to 500 hertz. (By comparison, humans hear frequencies from about 20 to 20,000 hertz.) This means squid can probably detect wind, waves and reef sounds, but not the high-frequency sounds emitted by the dolphins and toothed whales that eat them, Mooney said.

Why only low frequencies? I'll bone up on that (maybe there's a better idiom for invertebrate research) and get back to you . . .