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Update: June 17, 2008 
BATS AND TOADS AND ROACHES, OH MY!! By Pam Eastlick
By Pam Eastlick for THE DEEP on line
Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

Greetings everyone, I thought that today we'd delve into the wild and wonderful world of animals. We share the planet with some strange creatures and some of them, quite frankly we could do without. So join me as we learn a little about some scientific news about animals.

THE ROARING BAT

Researchers studying echolocation behavior in bats have discovered that the diminutive flying mammals emit exceptionally loud sounds -- louder than any known flying animals. European scientists studied 11 species of insect-eating tropical bats from Panama and discovered that these bats emit exceptionally loud sounds exceeding 140 dB (at 10 cm from the bat's mouth), which is the highest level reported so far for any animal in air. For comparison, the level at a loud rock concert is 115-120 dB and the loudest ever recorded for a lion's roar was 114 dB. The threshold of pain for humans is around 120 dB. The researchers used microphone arrays and photographic methods to reconstruct flight paths of the bats in the field when these nocturnal hunters find and capture their insect prey in air using their sonar system. Bats emit their echolocation calls at ultrasonic frequencies, which means that humans can't hear them.
Bats emit their echolocation calls at ultrasonic frequencies in order to get echoes from small insects.

Although Vanguard fell silent in 1964, it continues to serve the scientific community. Ground-based tracking of the satellite provides data concerning the effects of the sun, moon, and atmosphere on satellite orbits as astronomers monitor how Vanguard's orbit changes over time. When it was launched 50 years ago scientists thought it could last as long as 200 years. Vanguard is in such a stable orbit, scientists have extended this estimate to 2000 years. Happy Birthday little grapefruit and many happy returns!

ON THE BACK SIDE OF THE MOON

Fifty years after they designed the Vanguard 1 spacecraft, the good folks at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) are beginning to do the research to discover how to design a telescope to be built on the Moon. The telescope will be used to peer into the last unexplored epoch in the Universe's history, the time just after the Big Bang. The telescope will be called the Dark Ages Lunar Interferometer (DALI), the NRL-led concept for a telescope based on the Moon and studying an era of the young Universe, during the first 100 million years of its existence. Although the night sky is filled with stars, these stars did not form instantaneously after the Big Bang. There was an interval, now called the "Dark Ages," in which the Universe was unlit by any stars. The wavelengths of energy produced in the "Dark Ages" are now heavily used for various civil and military transmissions, all of which are millions of times brighter than the signal astronomers seek to detect. Additionally, the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere are ionized which distorts these long wavelengths of energy. The far side of the Moon has no atmosphere and is shielded from all Earth's radio transmissions. It provides a nearly ideal environment for a sensitive Dark Ages telescope. In NRL's DALI concept, scientists and engineers will investigate antenna construction, methods to deploy the antennas, electronics that can survive in the harsh lunar environment, and related technology to prepare for building a lunar telescope. When asked about the program, NRL Senior Astronomer Dr. Kurt Weiler remarked: "Building telescopes on the Moon is clearly a long-term project, but I am very excited about us getting started on this proposal." I'm excited too! Here's hoping it happens sooner rather than later!

The crater Tsiolkovsky is a relatively level region on the far side of the Moon. A lander would deposit a series of rovers, which would then move out and unroll a set of arms containing individual antennas. The astronomical signals picked up by the antennas would be transmitted to back to the central lander for processing. (Credit: NRL)

And now we come to one of those cool stories that show how science changes every day. In eighth grade, I first studied metamorphosis, the cool trick that caterpillars use to change from crawling worms to some of the most beautiful creatures on the planet. I remember learning that the caterpillar becomes sort of a 'soup' in the pupae and then the soup rearranges itself to become a butterfly. What went on in between was a sort of magic to me and as it turns out, sort of magic to just about everyone else, including the scientists. But researchers are beginning to unlock the 'black box' of the pupa and they've discovered some surprising things.

THAR' SHE BLOWS!

Hunting the great white whale. Those of you who ever read Moby Dick have an indelible picture of the dead Ahab's arm as he seemed to wave his men on from where he was entangled in the ropes around Moby Dick, the great white whale. And now . . . . . Moby Dick has been found! Well, not exactly. Moby Dick was a sperm whale and scientists aboard the NOAA research vessel Oscar Dyson in the North Pacific have sighted a slightly different animal. But it's still a creature of great rarity and even myth: a white killer whale. Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist at NOAA's National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, was able to photograph the whale's white fin and back. This whale is probably not a true albino because it has signs of darker pigmented areas on its body. However, because of its prominent coloring, the white whale will be easy to track and help scientists follow him and his pod across the North Pacific. White killer whales have been seen in the Aleutian Islands before, as well as in the Bering Sea and off the Russian coast. Scientists are working to confirm whether or not the whale sighted Feb. 23 is the same animal as any of those previous seen.

Scientists have sighted a creature of great rarity and even myth: a white whale. (Credit: NOAA)

Russian coast. Scientists are working to confirm whether or not the whale sighted Feb. 23 is the same animal as any of those previous seen. How's your breathing been lately? Have your eyes been irritated? Sneezing a lot? It may not be just the allergies caused by the end of the dry season (assuming, of course, that it's actually ending). There may be something a little more sinister causing your misery.

DEADLY EXPORT

Researchers conducting a study funded by NASA have taken advantage of improvements in satellite sensors to construct a chilling map that shows just where the pollution from East Asian forest fires, urban exhaust, and industrial production is ending up. China, the world's most populated country, has experienced rapid industrial growth, massive human migrations to urban areas, and considerable expansion in automobile use over the last two decades. As a result, the country has doubled its emissions of man-made pollutants to become the world's largest emitter of tiny particles called pollution aerosols that are transported across the Pacific Ocean by rapid airstreams emanating from East Asia. The research team also found that pollution movements fluctuate during the year, with the East Asian airstream carrying its largest "load" in spring and smallest in summer. The most extensive East Asian export of pollution across the Pacific took place in 2003, triggered by record-breaking wildfires across vast forests of East Asia and Russia. Notably, the pollution aerosols also travel quickly. They cross the ocean and journey into the atmosphere above North American in as little as one week.

In a new NASA study, researchers taking advantage of improvements in satellite sensor capabilities offer the first measurement-based estimate of the amount of pollution from East Asian forest fires, urban exhaust, and industrial production that makes its way to western North America. (Credit: Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

Although the accompanying picture shows that the pollution present during the study missed us here in the Marianas, we all know that it doesn't always miss. It's a real shame when you live in a place that has virtually no air pollution and then you have to breath somebody else's. It just goes to show you that it really is a global environment and that everything you do ultimately affects someone else.

MAKING IT WORK AGAIN

One of the real scary things that's been happening lately is that many bacteria species are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Now researchers have discovered exactly how a bug that causes pneumonia has become resistant to the antibiotic penicillin. The same research could also cause MRSA, (perhaps the most notorious 'superbug') to become vulnerable to penicillin again and help create a library of designer antibiotics to use against a range of other dangerous bacteria. Worldwide Streptococcus pneumoniae causes 5 million fatal pneumonia infections a year in children . In the US it causes 1 million cases a year of pneumococcal pneumonia in the elderly and about 7% of them die from it. This new research showed how Streptococcus pneumoniae builds its penicillin immunity and opens up many ways to disrupt that mechanism and restore penicillin as a weapon against these bacteria. MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is one of the most dangerous superbugs and finding a way to make more antibiotics work against it would be a really lovely idea. Cruise on over to the Deep Website at www.thedeepradioshow.com to learn more about space exploration, white whales, MRSA and many other topics. Enjoy!