When you see bats flying around at night, they seem silent. But “even though we can’t hear them, bats are actually very loud in their calls,” says Te Jones. They are screaming sounds that are too high-pitched for your ears.
Jones is a graduate student in Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. She studies how bats “see” in the dark using echolocation. As a bat flies, it emits a beam of sound from its mouth or nose, then listens for the echoes bouncing off objects. Jones says a bat can aim the beam in different directions. If an insect flies through the beam, a bat can tell the insect’s size and location, along with how fast it is flying and in what direction. As part of Cynthia Moss’s research group at Johns Hopkins, she works with other scientists and students to study how bats use their echolocation superpower. Their experiments take place in a special room called—what else?—the Batlab.
CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE BATLAB?
It’s basically a collection of rooms that are covered floor-to-ceiling with foam that dampens sounds, so that bats aren’t getting these really strong echoes from, say, a concrete floor or really hard wall. And then there are some microphones spread out around the room. They are all fixed to the wall, and they cover the entire four walls. No matter where the bat happens to be pointing its head, we always have a microphone that can be picking up the call.
Denne historien er fra January 2021-utgaven av Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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Denne historien er fra January 2021-utgaven av Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.