Bats.

This is coolbert:

Found this interesting article that describes the efforts of humans to duplicate the echolocation system [for a device called the Bat-Bot] as employed by bats. A previous blog compared the abilities of bats to make aerial intercept of prey [flying insects], with the capabilities of a military fighter/interceptor to locate "prey" [an intruding enemy aircraft]. I had remarked that bats have to be considered one of the most remarkable creations in the natural world. This article "echoes" the same comments:

"The CIRCE project is the best effort so far to replicate a bat's acoustical system," said Jim Simmons, a neuroscientist at Brown University.



For all its sophistication, the Bat-Bot still can't hold a candle to its biological progenitor. It doesn't have its own brain, relying instead on a connection to a series of powerful computers that crunch through acoustical data from about 750 frequency channels in each ear.

That is just a fraction of what a real bat can do. It turns out a bat's hearing is as complex as it is acute, with hundreds of thousands of frequency channels in each ear, and as many neural receptors, totaling "perhaps a million separate elements," said Simmons, who is investigating how bats' cortical neurons respond to the echoes they hear.

"The real challenge is to find a way to duplicate the tremendous parallel processing power of a bat's brain," Simmons said.

A brain that's the size of a pea, he adds."

A BRAIN THE SIZE OF A PEA!!!

"And it's hard to see what's going on in such a tiny but highly sophisticated acoustical data-processing machine, Simmons said.

"It's like looking at a galaxy in space from Earth.""

Remarkable, YES!!??

YES!!!

coolbert.