How bats stay on target despite the clutter (w/ Video)
Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 13:41
in Mathematics & Economics
In a paper published this week in Science, researchers at Brown University and from the Republic of Georgia have learned how bats can home in on a target, while nearly instantaneously taking account of and dismissing other objects in their midst. The trick lies in their neurons: Bats can separate the cavalcade of echoes returning from their sonar pulses by distinguishing changes in amplitude the intensity of the sound between different parts of each echo within 1.5 decibels, to decide whether the object is a target or just background clutter.
