Tag Archives: 3d visualization

Bats: Virtually a model of flight

“Virtual Reality Design for Science” is a co-listed class at Brown and RISD that unites artists, designers, computer scientists, and experts in scientific visualization. The goal: to create tools for immersive interaction with scientific data. Test case for the course: the flight mechanics of bats.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — If you want to get a good look at a bat, a cave is a pretty good place to go. But on a Thursday in mid-December at Brown’s Granoff Center, there were virtual bats flapping about in a cave of a different sort. (more…)

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Study Amplifies Understanding of Hearing in Baleen Whales

For decades, scientists have known that dolphins and other toothed whales have specialized fats associated with their jaws, which efficiently convey sound waves from the ocean to their ears. But until now, the hearing systems of their toothless grazing cousins, baleen whales, remained a mystery.

Unlike toothed whales, baleen whales do not have enlarged canals in their jaws where specialized fats sit. While toothed whales use echolocation to find prey, baleen whales generally graze on zooplankton, and so some scientists have speculated that baleen whales may not need such a sophisticated auditory system. But a new study by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), published April 10, 2012, in The Anatomical Record, has shown that some baleen whales also have fats leading to their ears. (more…)

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