Machine learning is helping researchers decipher bat speech

Egyptian fruit bats are widespread throughout Africa and often roost together in colonies of 1,000 or more individuals. With that many neighbors packed together, it's no wonder they're such a noisy bunch. And thanks to some exciting machine learning research from Tel Aviv University, we now understand a bit of what they're saying. The research, published Thursday in the journal, Scientific Reports, explains how they did it. First, the team spent 75 days recording two groups of 11 bats held in separate cages.