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Bats bolster brain hypothesis, maybe technology, too

By Guest PostNovember 10, 2014Sciencebats, boda liu, brad willis, brown university, david echelmeyer, faenomenal, mantle composition, marjorie skubic, morbs, motion assessment, orthopaedics, physical therapists, seth sherman, signals, sonar, Technology, trent guess

Decades of research on how bats use echolocation to keep a focus on their targets not only lends support to a long debated neuroscience hypothesis about vision but also could lead to smarter sonar and radar technologies.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Amid a neuroscience debate about how people and animals focus on distinct objects within cluttered scenes, some of the newest and best evidence comes from the way bats “see” with their ears, according to a new paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology. In fact, the perception process in question could improve sonar and radar technology. (more…)

Polar night

By Guest PostFebruary 6, 2014Environmentacoustic technologies, algae, archipelago svalbard, arctic excursion, autonomous underwater vehicles, auvs, biological wasteland, ceoe, continuous darkness, jonathan cohen, kaytee pokrzywinski, light, mainland norway, marine biology, marine organisms, mark moline, north pole, photosynthesis, polar night, rov, sea life, sonar, unis, university of delaware, winter darkness

Arctic excursion explores how sea life copes with continuous winter darkness

When the North Pole tilts away from the sun during the winter, the Arctic region plunges into weeks of continuous darkness. The sun never peeks above the horizon, casting only a twinge of blue twilight at midday, and the moon dimly illuminates the landscape at night if conditions are clear.

People living in this “polar night” have adapted to the darkness using artificial light, but how ocean inhabitants cope remains to be seen. (more…)

Bats Use Water Ripples to Hunt Frogs

By Guest PostJanuary 26, 2014Nature, Scienceanti predator strategy, austin, bats, central, echolocation, eeb, frog, frog eating bats, leiden university, male tungara frog, mike ryan, natural form, physalaemus pustulosus, predator, pulsating sac, rachel page, rival, ryan taylor, salisbury university, sonar, south america, stri, trachops cirrhosus, university of texas, water ripples, wouter halfwerk

AUSTIN, Texas — As the male túngara frog serenades female frogs from a pond, he creates watery ripples that make him easier to target by rivals and predators such as bats, according to researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), Leiden University and Salisbury University.

A túngara frog will stop calling if it sees a bat overhead, but ripples continue moving for several seconds after the call ceases. In the study, published this week in the journal Science, researchers found evidence that bats use echolocation — a natural form of sonar — to detect these ripples and home in on a frog. The discovery sheds light on an ongoing evolutionary arms race between frogs and bats. (more…)

Sandy’s Underwater Sandscapes

By Guest PostNovember 18, 2012Environmentarthur trembanis, artificial reef, autonomous underwater vehicle, auv, broadkill beach, cape henlopen, carter duval, coast, currents, data, delaware, doug miller, ecosystem, fingerprint, floor, geological imprint, geological markings, gps, hard bottom, hugh r sharp, hurricane sandy, indian river inlet, justin walker, map, marine life, maryland, mid atlantic shores, natural environment, new jersey, ocean, post, pre, redbird reef, research vessel, sand formations, seafloor, sediment, sonar, storm, storm metrics, trevor metz, underwater, val schmidt, virginia, weapons

UD researchers studying ‘fingerprint’ left on seafloor by Hurricane Sandy

Beneath the 20-foot waves that crested off Delaware’s coast during Hurricane Sandy, thrashing waters reshaped the floor of the ocean, churning up fine sand and digging deep ripples into the seabed. Fish, crustaceans and other marine life were blasted with sand as the storm sculpted new surfaces underwater.

UD scientists cued up their instruments to document the offshore conditions before, during and after Sandy’s arrival to scrutinize the differences and better predict the environmental impact of future storms. (more…)

What Lives in the Sea? – First Census of Marine Life Reveals Thousands of New Species

By Guest PostOctober 6, 2010Nature, Scienceanimal plankton, autonomous underwater vehicles, auvs, celebes sea, census of marine life, chris german, cmarz, coml, decade of discovery, deep-sea imaging systems, deep-water chemosynthetic ecosystems, larry madin, lost city, marine geochemist, marine zooplankton, mid-atlantic ocean, NASA, peter wiebe, remotely operated vehicles, rovs, sonar, squidworm, tentacles, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution

The Census of Marine Life, a ten-year project to catalog all life in the sea, discovered more than 6,000 new species during its “decade of discovery,” scientists reported as they unveiled its results at a finale event in London Oct. 4-6. The collaboration combined the efforts of scientists from research organizations in more than 80 nations, including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). (more…)

Tag Archives: sonar

Bats bolster brain hypothesis, maybe technology, too

Polar night

Bats Use Water Ripples to Hunt Frogs

Sandy’s Underwater Sandscapes

What Lives in the Sea? – First Census of Marine Life Reveals Thousands of New Species