USE OF SOUND BY ANIMALS

Humans use sound to communicate, of course, as do many other

animals. But some animals have refined the use of sound in specialized

ways. In 1793, Italian physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani did some

experiments with bats and established that they use sound to locate their

prey. He took bats that lived in the cathedral tower in Pavia, blinded

them, and then turned them loose. Weeks later, those bats had fresh insect

in their stomachs, proving that they didn’t locate food by sight. Similar

experiments with bats that were made deaf, however, showed that they

could neither fly nor locate insects.

Today, we understand that bats navigate by emitting high pitched

sound waves and them listening for the reflection of those waves off of

other objects. By measuring the time it takes for a pulse of sound waves to

go out, be reflected, and come back, the bat can determine the distance to

surrounding objects, particularly the flying insects that make up its diet.

Typically, a bat can detect the presence of an insect up to 10 meters away.

In a interesting application of the principle of natural selection,

some species of moths have developed sophisticated sense organs to hear

the sound emitted by bats. Using ears on their thorax or abdomen, these

moths can hear the high pitched sound emitted by bats and thus can tell

when they are being “seen”. When they hear the sound, the moths take

immediate evasive action. In a few cases, moths have developed an even

more sophisticated defense. When a bat approaches, they emit a series of

high pitched clicks that ”jam” the bat’s detection system.

At the opposite end of the sound spectrum, when confronted by

very low frequency sound, we often don’t so much hear sound waves as

feel them. We sense the vibrations in our bodies. You may have

experienced this sensation when hearing very low notes on an organ.

Some animals (elephants, for example) routinely use sound in the 20-40

Hz range to communicate with each other over long distance. The mating
call of the female elephant, for example, is experienced as a vibration by

humans, but attracts bull elephants from many miles away.

Whales, dolphins, and porpoises use low frequency sound echoes as

a navigation tool in the ocean, much as bats do in air. Sometimes,

however, the sounds that they emit are in the audible range of humpback

whales, which have appeared on a number of commercial recordings. The

functions of these songs are not clear. It appears, however, that all of the

whales in a wide areas of ocean (the South Atlantic, for example) sing the

same song, although some individuals may leave out parts. The songs

change every year, but the whales in a given area change their songs

together.
 ANIMAL INSULATION: FUR AND FEATHERS

Houses aren’t the only place where insulation can be seen in our

world. Two kinds of animals birds and mammals maintain a constant

body temperature despite the temperature of their surrounding, and both

have evolved methods to control the flow of heat into and out of their

bodies. Part of these strategies involved the use of insulating materials

furs, feathers, and fat that serve to slow down the heat flow. Because most

of the time an animal’s body is warmer than the environment, the most

common situation is one in which the insulation works to keep heat in.

Whales, walruses, and seals are examples of animals that have

thick layers of fat to insulate them from the cold arctic waters in which

they swim. Fat is a poor conductor of heat and plays much the same role

in their bodies as the fibreglass insulation in your attic. Feathers are

another kind of insulation; in fact, many biologist suspect that feathers

evolved first as a kind of insulation to help birds maintain their body

temperature, and only later were adapted for light. Feather are made of

light, hollow tubes connected to each other by an array of small

interlocking spikes. They have some insulating properties themselves, but

their main effect comes from the fact that they trap air next to the body

and as we have pointed out, stationary air is rather good insulator. Bird

often react to extreme cold by contracting muscles in their skin so that

the feathers fluff out. This has the effect of increasing the thickness (and

hence the insulating power) of the layer of trapped air. (Incidentally, bird

need insulation more then we do because their normal body temperature

is 41oC or 106oF.)

Hair (or fur) is actually made up of dead cells similar to those in

the outer layer of the skin. Like feathers, hair serves as an insulator in its

own right and traps a layer of air near the body. In some animals (for

example, polar bear), the insulating power of the hair is increased because

each hair contains tiny bubbles of trapped air. The reflection of light from
these bubbles make polar bear fur appear white the strands of hair are

actually translucent.

Hair grows from follicles in the skin, and small muscles allow

animals to make their hair stand up to increase its insulating power.

Human beings, who evolved in a warm climate, have lost much of their

body hair as well as the ability to make most of it stand up. We have a

reminder of our mammalian nature, however, in the phenomenon of

“goose-bumps”, which is the attempt by muscles in the skin to make the

hair stand up.

 DEFRIBILLATOR

One device in which capacitors have an important role in the defribillator.

Up to 300 J is stored in the electric field of large capacitor in a defribillator when
it is fully charged. The defribillator can deliver all this energy to a patient in about
2 ms. (This is roughly equivalent to 3000 times the power delivered to a 60 W
lightbulb!) Under the proper conditions, the defribillator ca be used to stop cardiac
fibrillation occurs, the heart produces a rapid, irregular pattern of beats. A fast
discharge of energy through the heart can return the organ to its normal beat
pattern. Emergency medical teams use portable defribillator that contain batteries
capable of charging a capacitor to a high voltage. (The circuitry actually permits
the capacitor to be charged to a much higher voltage than that of the battery). The
stored energy is released through the heart by conducting electrodes, called
paddles, that are placed on both sides of the victim’s chest. The paramedics must
wait between applications of the energy due to the time necessary for the
capacitors to become fully charged. In this case and others (e.g. camera flash units
and lasers used for fusion experiment), capacitors serve as energy reservoirs
which can be slowly charged and then discharged quickly to provide large amount
of energy in a short pulse.
A camera’s flash unit also uses a capacitor, although the total amount of
energy stored is much less than that stored in a defribillator. After the flash unit’s
capacitor is charged, tripping the camera’s shutter causes the stored energy to be
sent through a special lightbulb that briefly illuminates the subject being
photographed.
 STATES OF MATTER

The three common states of matter are solid, liquid, and gas.

A solid maintains a fixed shape and a fixed size, even if a

large force is applied to a solid, it does not readily change in

shape or volume.

A liquid does not maintain a fixed shape, it takes on the

shape of its container, but like a solid, it is not readily a

compressible, and its volume can be changed significantly

only by a very large force.

A gas has neither a fixed shape nor a fixed volume, it will

expand to fill container.

For example, when air is pumped into an automobile tire, the

air does not run to the bottom as a liquid would, it spread out

to fill the whole volume of the tire.

Since liquid and gases do not maintain a fixed shape, they

both have the ability to flow, they are thus often referred to

collectively as fluids.

The division of matter into matter into three states is not

always simple. How, for example, should butter be classified?

Furthermore, a fourth state of matter can be distinguished,

the plasma state, which occurs only at very high

temperatures and consist of ionised atoms. Some scientists

believe that the so called colloids should also be considered a

separate state of matter.

 GALILEO GALILEI

Galileo Galilei was an Italian, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who

played a major role in the scientific revolution. His achievements include the first
systematic studies of uniformly accelerated motion, improvements to telescope
and consequent astronomical observation, and support for Copernicanism.
Galileo’s empirical work was a significant break from the abstract Aristotelian
approach of his time. Galileo has been called the “father of modern observational
astronomy”, “the father of modern physics”, and “