National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Humans Can Learn to "See" With Sound, Study Says


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

Animals such as the chestnut short-tailed bat above use echolocation—sound waves bounced off nearby objects—to sense what's around them.

Inspired by a blind man who taught himself to "see" using clicks of his tongue, a team of Spanish researchers announced in June 2009 that almost anyone can be trained to echolocate.

Photograph by Christian Ziegler