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Bats bolster brain hypothesis, maybe technology, too

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.

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.

Laser makes microscopes way cooler

Ph.D. students Giovanni Guccione (left) and Harry Slatyer examine their gold coated nanowire probe in the Quantum Optics Laboratory at the Australian National University. Credit: ANU Quantum Optics Group

Cooling a nanowire probe with a laser could lead to substantial improvements in the sensitivity of atomic force probe microscopes

Laser physicists have found a way to make atomic-force microscope probes 20 times more sensitive and capable of detecting forces as small as the weight of an individual virus.

The technique, developed by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU), hinges on using laser beams to cool a nanowire probe to minus 265 degrees Celsius.

"The level of sensitivity achieved after cooling is accurate enough for us to sense the weight of a large virus that is 100 billion times lighter than a mosquito," said Dr Ben Buchler from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.

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Peer-reviewed paper says all ivory markets must close

This is an ivory stockpile that was destroyed by the US Fish and Wildlife service last year.

Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS

The message is simple: to save elephants, all ivory markets must close and all ivory stockpiles must be destroyed, according to a new peer-reviewed paper by the Wildlife Conservation Society. The paper says that corruption, organized crime, and a lack of enforcement make any legal trade of ivory a major factor contributing to the demise of Africa's elephants.