From Trace Dominguez. ( YouTube / Nebula )

Bats & moths have been locked in a #SonicArmsRace for millions of years, creating something superior to anything humans have yet invented. ✨ Brilliant is a simple way to learn the principles of math & science! Try Brilliant and support making more of this show: https://brilliant.org/trace
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📒📒📒 C H A P T E R S 📒📒📒
0:00 Good video is good audio
1:36 65 million years before this video
2:30 Top Gun: Mothrick
2:58 The Sonic Arms Race
4:09 Sound-abosrbing scales
04:29 WTF is a metamaterial?
4:42 Graphene has entered the chat*
5:00 🤩 The Moth’s Amazing Metamaterial
5:31 How acoutsic metamaterial works (we think)
5:56 we are so far behind
6:50 A BUT THATS NOT ALLLLLL!
7:32 Musings about other species
11:24 The End?

📙📙📙 B L U R B 📙📙📙
Bats & moths have been locked in a #SonicArmsRace for millions of years, and their evolution may help us create sound-absorbing materials superior to anything humans have invented today. Bats evolved #echolocation in order to better hunt moths (their prey). In response, certain species of moth evolved ways to absorb or reflect the echolocation squeaks of the bats. After millions of years of evolution pressure, some moths can absorb broad frequencies of sound with an efficiency only seen in advanced engineered #metamaterials. What does this mean for us? Someday, we humans may learn to copy the moth’s evolutionary advantages and absorb broadband sound using paper-thin technologies that simply wouldn’t exist otherwise!

📕📕📕 L E A R N M O R E 📕📕📕
Moth wings as sound absorber metasurface
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.2022.0046
Each scale absorbs sound at the frequency of its main resonance modes [21]. When numerous scales of differing size and therefore resonant frequencies cover the membrane, the result is broadband acoustic absorption in the deep-subwavelength regime

Moth wings are acoustic metamaterials
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014531117 
Bats and moths are embroiled in an evolutionary arms race. Using ultrasonic biosonar, bats detect their insect prey, which in turn deploy diverse strategies to avoid predation. Here, we show that some moth species evolved wings covered with a canopy of scales that reduces ultrasonic echoes. Our empirical and mathematical analysis together show that moth wings exhibit key features of a desirable technological acoustic metamaterial. This work enriches our understanding of the structural and functional complexity of lepidopteran wings and reveals enticing new ways to design, using bioinspired metamaterial properties, high-performance acoustic panels and noise mitigation devices.

Ultrasonic predator–prey interactions in water–convergent evolution with insects and bats in air?
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2013.00137/full
The ultrasound sensitive ears in combination with sudden evasive maneuvers mitigate predation risk from echolocating bats, increasing the insect’s chance of survival by at least 40% (Surlykke et al., 1999). Some bats have lowered the intensity of their calls by 20–40 dB, apparently as a counterstrategy against the ultrasound sensitive ears (Goerlitz et al., 2010). While other bats echolocate at frequencies outside the best hearing range of moths

This video has been dubbed using an artificial voice via https://aloud.area120.google.com to increase accessibility. You can change the audio track language in the Settings menu.

Some images by Getty Images
Music by Epidemic Sound

Love you, #nerdfam! Stay #curious!