The Bat's Special Radar Design If you wake up when it's still
dark, you know how overwhelming it can be to turn on the light.
Your eyes may even hurt at first. If you've had this experience,
you can understand one of the problems that had to be solved
when radar was developed. Basically, radar is made up of two
parts. The transmitter sends out a powerful beam of radar waves.
But the other part of the radar system is a very sensitive
receiver that cannot stand the powerful outgoing signal. One of
the major technical problems to be overcome in developing modern
radar involved sending out this powerful signal without
overwhelming the sensitive receiver. What scientists finally
developed was a fast switch that turns the sensitive receiver
off every time a radar pulse is sent out. Bats, who have their
own sonic radar, had this problem solved from the beginning.
They have muscles in their ears that are the receivers for the
echoes. These muscles close the ears for split seconds when the
bats are sending out their h