Do dolphins think nonlinearly?
Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 09:00
in Biology & Nature
Research, which examines how dolphins might process their sonar signals, could provide a new system for human-made sonar to detect targets, such as sea mines, in bubbly water. When hunting prey, dolphins have been observed to blow 'bubble nets' around schools of fish, which force the fish to cluster together, making them easier for the dolphins to pick off. However, such bubble nets would confound the best human-made sonar because the strong scattering by the bubbles generates 'clutter' in the sonar image, which cannot be distinguished from the true target.