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Your Very Own Batphone - Or, A Phone You Can Use To Track Bat Populations

The Itsy Bitsy Spider via Flickr/Creative Commons

Ok, you don't get to wear a cape, and you don't get a butler named Alfred, but you can have a Batphone of your own and become a superhero - to endangered bat populations, anyway.

The iBats app lets you use a smartphone to record bat echolocation calls, which are fed into a central database and shared with scientists to measure local bat populations and see if they're healthy The app is most popular in Europe, though there are users in other parts of the world too, including the US.

There is one slightly important caveat here: bat echolocation calls are ultrasonic, so you need an ultrasonic microphone ($249 or so) to use the app. But being a super-hero, you have a wealthy alter ego like Bruce Wayne who can afford such things, right?

[Scientific American]

Oh, and as long as we're on the subject...

Now it's your turn. Grab your smartphone, head over to the comments field and track an awesome link or two.

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