« North Korea threatens to pull out of nuclear deal | News Picks home | NOAA upgrades its research fleet »

Wind turbines make bat lungs rupture

ScienceNOW: For decades, researchers have noticed that mangled birds litter the ground surrounding wind turbines, and recently they've found that dead bats actually outnumber the birds, by as many as four times in some places. This was a surprise, as bats' sonar should allow them to detect moving objects even better than they do stationary ones. The findings suggest a sudden drop in air pressure that ruptures blood vessels in the bats' delicate lungs, says Erin Baerwald, an ecology graduate student at the University of Calgary in Canada.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.physicstoday.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2616

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

COMPANY SPOTLIGHT