Batcopter flying in bat swarm (half-speed) from Kenn Sebesta on Vimeo.

When DIY robotics and the single-minded persistence of scientists intersect, you get things like the Batcopter. This four-propellered hovering boxspring was designed by Boston University researchers to infiltrate flocks of millions of bats as they bob and weave, recording data about how they manage to avoid colliding while simultaneously (we are confident) scaring the bejeezus out of them.

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Bringing up a fruit bat’s oral sex habits with a colleague you don’t know very well may not be the best idea–but according to an Irish court, it doesn’t quite merit the extreme sanctions associated with more flagrant sexual harassment.

Back in May, Discoblog brought you news that a biology professor in Ireland was being charged with harassment by a female colleague after he read from and discussed a racy new paper about fruit bat fellatio. The biologist, Dale Evans, was ordered to attend two years of counseling to correct his attitudes and behavior, and was told that he would be monitored for those two years. But Evans claimed that he’d simply thought the paper was hilarious, had shown it to numerous people that day, and had zero intention of causing offense to his colleague, Rossana Salerno Kennedy. Now ScienceInsider gives us the update:

Evans challenged the ruling, and a judge has now ruled in favor of him, which means that he won’t have to do the counseling. The university’s sanctions on him were “grossly disproportionate,” the judge said. “I won my battle,” Evans tells ScienceInsider.

The High Court judge said that Evans should have received a verbal warning rather than the counseling and monitoring. Evans wasn’t vindicated completely, though. As the Irish Times reports:

The judge refused to grant orders overturning findings of an external investigation that, while Dr Evans had no intention to offend in showing the paper to his colleague, the incident fell within the definition of sexual harassment under UCC’s “Duty of Respect and Right to Dignity” policy.

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Discoblog: A Scientist Finds out That Discussion of Bat Fellatio Is NSFW
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Holy Fellatio, Batman! Fruit Bats Use Oral Sex to Prolong Actual Sex

The list of wacky science discoveries from the Ig Nobel awards announced last night includes teams who made strides in vital fields like bat fellatio and curing diseases via roller coaster rides.

The awards are given out every year for discoveries that made us both laugh and think. Here’s a full list of the winning teams and projects:

Physics: A group of researchers in New Zealand found that wearing your socks over shoes improves your ability to walk on ice.  Team member Lianne Parkin explained to Fox News the reason for her work:

“We live in the south of New Zealand in a very hilly city (we have the steepest street in the world!), and intermittent icy conditions in winter can create major havoc,” she said.

Management: A mathematical study by researchers in Italy found that in some business situations, it is better to promote randomly than the choose the most qualified candidates.

Engineering: A team based in the UK and Mexico found the perfect way to collect whale snot–send a remote controlled helicopter in to do it for you. The team members explained the technique to ABC News:

“The technique involves flying a remote-controlled helicopter above a whale as it surfaces and catching the whale blow in petri dishes attached to the underside of the helicopter,” they said in a statement.

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According to Dale Evans, a professor at University College Cork in Ireland, he just wanted to bring up an interesting tidbit of animal behavior while chatting with a colleague. But the journal article he referenced, “Fellatio in fruit bats prolongs copulation time,” didn’t just cause raised eyebrows, it also prompted a sexual harassment complaint.

New Scientist reports:

As part of what he says was an ongoing discussion on human uniqueness, Evans showed a copy of the fellatio paper to a female colleague in the school of medicine. “There was not a shred of a sign of offence taken at the time,” Evans says. “She asked for a copy of the article.” A week later he got a letter informing him that he was being accused of sexual harassment.

The female colleague later said that she asked for a copy of the article only to cut short the conversation, which she found disgusting and offensive. Let’s just hope that she didn’t take a look at the video the original researchers put together of the bats in action.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Chimps Use Tools to Improve Their Sex Lives
Discoblog: Endangered Frogs Encouraged to Get Amorous in an Amphibian “Love Shack”
80beats: With Chirps and Trills, Bats Sing Love’s Sweet Song
80beats: The Original Bat-Signals: Bats Can Recognize Individual Voices

Image: flickr / MDL.hu

You know the prevailing posture of a bat in repose—hanging upside down. All but six of the known 1,200 bat species in the world roost with their heads down, but now naturalists have had the chance to study a Madagascar bat that not only roosts right-side-up, it hangs onto surfaces in a totally unexpected way.

Myzopoda aurita is endangered and listed as vulnerable to extinction. But a team lead by Brown University’s Daniel Riskin got to travel to Madagascar and found colonies of the bat in newly grown forests. There they found that the bat roosts right side up by deploying a kind of liquid adhesive.

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• Look up! The biggest full moon in 15 years (if you’re in the Northern hemisphere) will rise tonight…like an extra-large pizza.

• There are more than one billion people in the world who speak Chinese. Still, the Max Planck Institute didn’t bother to find one to proofread the calligraphy splashed across the cover of their science journal. The “classical poem” turned out to be a racy brothel ad.

• Is it a boy or a girl? A baby’s sex may be determined by the father’s genes.

• Scientists find that bats’ echolocation can hit 110 decibels—about as loud as an iPod on full volume.

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Diamond rings can get lost on the beach or fall down the drain. For something that truly lasts forever, consider naming a new species of bat after your sweetheart—or yourself.

Purdue University is holding an auction, just in time for the holiday season, to name nine newly discovered species, including seven bats and two turtles. The funds raised will go towards funding studies of the new species and conserving their natural habitats.

First up on the block is a real gem: the world’s tiniest bat. The little yellow creature is found from Mexico to Brazil and weighs less than a teaspoon of water. John Bickham, who helped discover the new species, explains the prize as follows: “The species name would look like: Rhogeessa (your name here). And fitting with the scientific protocols and the Latin descriptions for the genus and species, we would add an ‘i’ to the person’s name.”

Although the honor of naming a new species traditionally goes to the discoverer, Bickham is donating that right to the auction. In case you’re not sold yet, Bickham notes that bats make up nearly one-fourth of all mammals and they play essential roles as pollinators, seed dispersers, and pest controllers. The winning bidder will also get the chance to travel on a scientific expedition with the research team.

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