science · 18 June 2010 · 15 years ago
death
Died 18 Jun 2010 at age 96 (born 20 Apr 1914).
American physiologist who, with fellow student Donald Griffin, confirmed that bats use echolocation to avoid obstacles while in flight. Their work conclusively proved Jurine's suggestion, of a century and a half before, that bats could hear sounds beyond the human range, and that this ability facilitated night flight. In their experiment (1938), a special microphone in a dark room was used to prove that bats flying in the dark could “see” by emitting ultrasonic vocal sounds and then navigating around obstacles using the echoes as an internal guidance system. Such flight was severely impaired if either a bat's ears were plugged, or its mouth was held closed by a loop of thread. Galambos' subsequent career was devoted to the neurophysiology of hearing and the brain.
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