Birds that fly like bats
QUESTION
Does any bird species use echolocation? In September 1799, German explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt visited the Guacharo Cave, near Caripe in monagas State, Venezuela. Guacharo means ‘one who wails or laments’.
the cave is named after the extraordinary noises made by one of its occupants, the oilbird, an unusual orange, whiskered bird, the only nocturnal-flying, fruit-eating birds in the world.
the noises they make include screeches and clicks, and it’s the clicks, emitted at an incredible 250 a second, that allow the birds to manoeuvre at high speed through the cave while a highly specialised sense of smell allows them to find the fruits and nuts that make up their diet.
During his visit, von Humboldt gave the bird the Latin name Steatornis caripensis, which means ‘fat bird of Caripe’. their popular name comes from the fact that they consume the fruits of the oil palm.
Von Humboldt didn’t understand the significance of the clicks. but just five years earlier, in 1794, Italian naturalist Lazzaro Spallanzani had reported sightless bats oriented themselves in darkness but also apparent silence. Had the two men corresponded, the behaviour of von Humboldt’s birds might have brought forward the study of echolocation by 135 years.
It wasn’t until the 1930s that American scientist Donald Griffin finally determined the mechanism for bat navigation.
the discovery of ultrasonic bat echolocation prompted a wide search for other animal biosonar systems, which yielded two avian groups; the oilbirds and a selection of about 15 related diurnal, insect- eating species called swiftlets ( species in the genera Aerodramus and Collocalia: Apodidae) from across the Indo-pacific.
birds’ echolocation is less sophisticated than that of bats. It’s restricted to lower frequencies audible to humans, implying a system of poorer resolution than the ultrasonic (>20 kHz) biosonar of most bats and the other echolocation experts, the Odontoceti or toothed whales.
Charles Forrest, Llandudno.
QUESTION
From when is the earliest written account of the common cold? THERE are 200 odd viruses that can cause the common cold, the most notable being the rhinovirus, responsible for 30 to 60 per cent of colds. these were identified from only about 50 years ago.
etymology indicates that the disease was given the name ‘cold’ in the 1530s because of the similarities between the symptoms of the disease and the symptoms of those exposed to cold weather, but the traditional belief that a person is more susceptible to a cold in cold weather remains unproven.
It was the ancient egyptians that gave us our earliest description of the cold.
the ebers papyrus, discovered by German egyptologist Georg ebers in 1874, is a 65ft-long document that provides impressive coverage of various ailments with hundreds of incantations and formulas for remedies.
Its precise date is uncertain, but it is at least as old as the 16th century BC, the time of pharaoh Amenophis I (who ruled 1526-1506 BC) as evidenced by several calendar entries on the back.
In addition to 20 types of cough, it also contains the earliest description of a cold, its cure and the formula for a spell that should drive the cold out of the body: ‘Flow out, fetid nose, flow out, son of fetid nose. Flow out, thou breakest bones, destroyest the skull, and makest ill the seven holes of the head’.
the milk of a woman who has borne a son or aromatic resin is proposed as therapeutic remedies. the spell must be said four times over these healing items, and they should be placed on the nose for four days. Irrigating the nose with date juice is also recommended.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
QUESTION
How many old steam railway era roundhouse locomotive sheds are there left in the UK? FURTHER to the earlier answers regarding steam-age railway roundhouses, steam locomotive stabling and servicing points, sheds or depots were of three main designs, two of which required a turntable.
A common design for small depots was a straight shed housing one or two engines, typically for branch lines. Straight shed design could have from one road (track) upwards, with the largest sheds perhaps having more than 15 roads with each road holding more than four engines.
A turntable, if the shed had one, would be sited suitably for ease of turning engines around. If the turntable was out of action, the depot could usually access roads to the shed and most, if not all, other parts of the depot.
the roundhouse was in most cases actually a roughly square building to accommodate an internal central turntable, which could be up to 70ft in diameter. A large number of roads would radiate from this central turntable and extend almost to the building walls.
normally, each road could hold up to two engines, depending on their size. One or more roads would exit from the roundhouse. If the turntable failed, then every engine in the roundhouse was trapped, a disadvantage for this style of design.
there were some exceptions to the roughly square roundhouse, such as some built by the midland railway which were roughly round, including Carlisle upperby, York South and Leicester midland. Darlington, north eastern railway, also had the round type of building.
the third variation was the ‘fan’ shape, with an external turntable leading off to covered roads in part or most of a circle. St blazey in Cornwall, Guildford in Surrey, and Inverness in Scotland are examples of this design.
Old Oak Common for paddington, London, was, at its largest, four joined roundhouses with an allocation of 174 engines in 1959 before diesel traction took over. the last part of this depot was finally closed in more recent years. Several depots had two roundhouses for their larger allocation of engines.
Stratford was regarded as the largest british depot with more than 220 engines allocated, and was unable to hold all of them at the same time.
As an enthusiast in the days of steam, there was for me always something about entering a roundhouse that straight sheds did not have. to stand on the turntable and survey the engines all around you with smells from the different coal used and the many noises from engines resting or being prepared was a unique thing to experience.
Alan Bowden, Bristol.
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