While we all know we’re supposed to focus on the here and now, there are times when we all wish we could see into the future.
Well, maybe we just need to be a little more like bats, who researchers at Johns Hopkins University say can “hear” into the future.
Bats, of course, are famous for using their own internal radar, echolocation, to figure out where insects are so they can swoop in and catch their meal.
The catch? In most cases, the bats and the insects are flying around as this happens.
So once the bat has found the bug’s location, it isn’t there anymore.
The Johns Hopkins team did an experiment to see how the bats account for this.
They trained some bats to track insects without going after them, and then monitored the bats’ head movements.
What they found was that, for bats, echolocation is just step one in the hunting process.
As they discover where bugs are, they create models in their minds to predict where the bugs are going.
And these models are so complex, they can keep tracking the prey even if they temporarily fly behind trees or other objects.
So, in this way, bats can predict the future.
But the researchers were very clear that they can really only use this talent for catching food.
It’s not like bats can give you the winning lottery numbers or anything.
It was on this day in 2008 that music lovers proclaimed that they were never gonna give us up.
The MTV European Music Awards let fans vote on the internet for Best Act Ever.
This being the internet, there was only one possible choice: Rick Astley.
Yes, they Rickrolled music history!
Hearing the Future (Johns Hopkins University)
MTV EMAs name Rick Astley ‘Best Act Ever’ (NME)
Cool Weird Awesome will never give its Patreon backers up, will never let them down…