The original batman

• Autores: Christopher Kemp
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3152, 2017, págs. 44-45
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • A profile of Lazzaro Spallanzani, an ordained Catholic priest and tireless, self-taught scientist, who was the first to unravel the mystery of how bats could see and hunt in total darkness, with some ingenious, if gruesome, experiments, is featured. Spallanzani began an ingenious series of experiments that still hold up today in terms of rigour, if not ethics, to determine the differences between bat and owl. Instead, it would take another century and a half from the time of his discovery for researchers to uncover the complex system of echolocation that bats use to navigate. Born in 1729, Spallanzani wrote widely about the natural world about swallows, owls and eels, but bats really fascinated him and his mind was alert to the simple mystery that eluded others. How does a bat navigate in the dark?, wherein he approached the subject gently, which led him to the logical, though mistaken, idea that somewhere that looked dark to humans and owls had some mysterious luminescence, which a bat with no hood could see.