Swamp lights and bat sight

Swamp lights and bat sight

Author: PNAS October 27, 2025 Duration: 10:26

Swamp lights and bat sight

Science Sessions are brief conversations with cutting-edge researchers, National Academy members, and policymakers as they discuss topics relevant to today's scientific community. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), plus a broad range of scientific news about discoveries that affect the world around us.

In this episode, researchers explore two spooky mysteries: the source of will-o'-the-wisps and how bats integrate vision with echolocation.

In this episode, we cover:
•[00:00] Introduction
•[00:58] Richard Zare's background and expertise.
•[01:26] Richard, have you ever seen will-o'-the-wisps in the wild?
•[01:31] What did we already know about will-o'-the-wisps before your study?
•[02:42] How could water droplets ignite methane?
•[03:24] Tell us about the methods of your study. How did you explore this phenomenon?
•[04:17] What are the broader implications of your findings, beyond just will-o'-the-wisps?
•[05:20] What are the caveats or the limitations of the study?
•[05:40] Laura Stidsholt's background and expertise.
•[06:06] Laura, what can you tell us about the species you studied?
•[06:25] What instruments did you attach to the bats?
•[07:03] How did the bats' echolocation behavior compare in dark versus lit environments?
•[08:14] What do the results suggest about the benefits of integrating information from multiple senses while hunting prey?
•[08:58] What do the results imply about the potential impact of artificial light on bats?
•[09:43] Final thoughts and conclusion.

About Our Guests:
Richard Zare 
Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science 
Stanford University

Laura Stidsholt 
Assistant Professor 
Aarhus University

View related content here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2521255122
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2515087122

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Tune into PNAS Science Sessions for a direct line to the people shaping modern science. Produced by PNAS, this podcast offers more than just summaries of published research; it’s where you hear the candid, often personal stories behind the headlines. Each episode features concise conversations with the researchers themselves-from emerging voices to established Academy members-alongside the policymakers whose decisions are informed by this work. You’ll get a genuine sense of the questions that drive these experts, the unexpected hurdles they face in their labs and field studies, and why their findings matter right now. The scope is deliberately wide, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of science itself, covering discoveries that range from microscopic processes to planetary-scale phenomena. This isn't about dry lectures, but about capturing the human endeavor of investigation. For anyone curious about how science actually unfolds and wants to understand the context of breakthroughs as they happen, this podcast serves as an essential, engaging resource. It connects the dots between a published paper in a prestigious journal and the real-world implications that ripple out from it.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

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