Some butterfly species sport striking patterns on their wings which they use to visually camouflage themselves from predators. But the luna moth is a nocturnal creature. Scientists have suggested that the unique twisty tails of these moths help throw off predators like bats that rely on sound to hunt and navigate—a…
Say hello to the “Echo Hunter,” a 27 million-year-old toothed whale that’s helping scientists understand how these ancient sea creatures evolved the ability to hear high-frequencies underwater, and then turn that ability into a killing technique.
Bats find their way around at night by emitting noise and listening to the way it bounces back to them. But since bats often congregate in large groups, how do they keep from losing their own signal in the din? A new study found that they do this much in the same way children do: by trying to screech the loudest.
In a world’s first, researchers from the US and UK have created an impression of a submerged human as recorded by a dolphin’s echolocation.
To do it, a team led by Jack Kassewitz of SpeakDolphin.com used an imaging system known as a Cymascope. The system, developed by John Stuart Reid (who also assisted with the…
Most of us consider vision and hearing to be two separate senses. But dolphins use sound to see, emitting clicks, squawks and whistles to reveal hidden objects. This is called echolocation, and a new map of dolphin brain circuitry hints at how the animals do it.
Daniel Kish, who lost his eyesight to cancer, is now an expert in echolocation - the technique that a bat uses to navigate at night. This is why he is sometimes known as the real life Batman - although Daredevil would be more accurate. Using these skills Daniel is able to enjoy independence and freedom from many of…
There’s plenty of precedent for echolocation in the natural world: bats can navigate based on the echo of their chirrups; and blind humans, at least anecdotally, sometimes develop remarkable sound-based spatial skills. But using sound to accurately map a space in three dimensions? That’s new.
By using five microphones, a speaker, and a sophisticated new echolocation algorithm, researchers have successfully built a full 3D image of a cathedral’s insanely complex interior. The same technology could someday allow humans to navigate in total darkness.
Bats rely on their hearing more than any other mammal. After all, bats navigate the night sky by hearing the results of their echolocation, their natural sonar system. Turns out that's just the beginning of what makes bat-hearing amazing.
You know what I'm talking about; that accelerating high-pitched beep bleeding into a squeal as the projectile locks-on and closes on your position. It's the "Oh shit I'm dead" sound for fighter pilots and whatever "oh shit I'm dead" translates into for bugs as well, apparently.
Bat mouths are already pretty much completely awesome, thanks to their amazing echolocation abilities. So this almost seems like overkill: bats are the first known mammals to possess superfast muscles, moving a hundred times faster than the average human muscle.
Radar is wonderful, sure, but militaries didn't always have the benefit of radar to pinpoint enemy locations. Before that, there was sonar. Underwater is one thing, though. On land, you needed big victrola-like contraptions that looked uncomfortable as all hell.
Vision and hearing are generally regarded as two very different senses. Unless, of course, you can echolocate. Now, scientists have revealed for the first time that human echolocators — blind individuals who navigate their surroundings by producing mouth clicks and listening to the returning echoes — actually process…
Daniel Kish lost his eyesight when he was 13 months old. For most of his youth, he functioned fine without a walking stick. He mountain bikes. He camps alone. He moves through cities handily. All thanks to advanced echolocation abilities.
It ain't easy being a bat, what with hanging upside down, and extinction threats. But fascinating research shows they're also helpless against their innate echolocation sense, which makes them attempt to drink from metallic sheets they detect as still water.
Scientists know how bats use echolocation to find insects, but how do they detect bodies of water? To find out the answer to this question, German researchers filmed a bunch of Bulgarian bats going bonkers in an enclosed room.
Bats and dolphins have something in common: They both use "echolocation," or sonar, to navigate the air and water. Now two scientific breakthroughs help explain how these animals' extraordinary abilities evolved, and how they work.
Blind superhero Daredevil could identify his surroundings by listening to sounds as they bounced off objects. Now a blind boy in Britain has learned to use echolocation himself, a technique that can be taught to others.
We may not all have pointy ears and sharp teeth, but Spanish scientists are convinced that inside every human lurks the best bat-power: echolocation, or navigating by sound. And they're determined to show us all how to unlock it!
We've seen bat-like drones, and even heard of genuine bat weaponry, but now the Pentagon is after micro UAVs with genuine echolocation bat-senses, for real. The Air Force has just awarded a new contract to develop swarms of micro drones that use bat-inspired echolocation for navigation through the complex airspace in…
