Some people who are blind can echolocate like bats, making clicks with their mouths that help them understand the environment around them. Now researchers are beginning to understand how this works, so non-sighted people may one day be able to learn the technique. While many people who are blind get information from ambient echoes, only a few make noises themselves to echolocate. Some, such as Daniel Kish (pictured), are so proficient they can draw a sketch of a room after clicking their way around it, or even go mountain biking along unfamiliar routes. Previous research revealed that this human echolocation involves some brain areas that are used for vision in sighted people.

Daniel Kish sees more than you might expect, for a blind man. Like many individuals deprived of sight, he relies on his non-visual senses to perceive, map, and navigate the world. But people tend to find Kish's abilities rather remarkable. As a child, Kish taught himself to generate sharp clicking noises with his mouth, and to translate the sound reflected by surrounding objects into spatial information. Perhaps you've seen videos like this one, in which Kish uses his skills to navigate a new environment, describe the shape of a car, identify the architectural features of a distant building--even ride a bike: Impressive as his abilities are, Kish insists he isn't special. "People who are blind have been using various forms of echolocation to varying degrees of efficiency for a very long time," he says.

Bats wiggle their ears and nose to help them find their way at night, researchers have found. The wiggles improve their ability detect sound waves that bounce off objects and navigate precisely, allowing them to distinguish a moth's wing-beat from a falling leaf. Researchers used the findings to design a drone with improved navigation abilities, and the findings could potentially lead to improvements in other technologies too, such as more accurate speech recognition devices. Virginia Tech associate professor Dr Rolf Mueller and his team have discovered that small movements of horseshoe bats' ears and noses help them navigate in complex natural environments. This research has led to the design of a bat-inspired robotic sonar head, shown here being attached to a drone, with a movable'noseleaf' and'ears' Echolocation is the use of sound waves and echoes to determine where objects are in space.