Mysterious Bat Deaths in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts Thousands of bats are sick, or dead, in at least 20 northeastern U. S. caves. So far, not a single laboratory examining tissues has come up with the cause of death. The physical anomalies in some, but not all, of the dead or dying bats are white rings of fungus around their noses and lung tissue inflammation, similar to pneumonia. "Of the four sites affected last year and we’ve re-visited this year, we’ve re-visited two of them and are going to go into the other two in the next couple of days. But of the two we’ve revisited, we’ve had a 90% and 97% decline in their numbers since the last survey prior to the syndrome being discovered in January 2007." 1st June 2008 Computers show how bats classify plants according to their echoes Researchers have developed a computer algorithm that can imitate the bat`s ability to classify plants using echolocation. The study, published March 21st in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, represents a collaboration between machine learning scientists and biologists studying bat orientation. 21st March 2008 US biologist says found new bat species A biologist at Chicago's Field Museum said he has discovered a new species of sucker-footed bats that are thriving in deforested areas of western Madagascar. 9th January 2007 Bats speak up to avoid a jam - New Scientist Bats can locate their prey using echolocation without confusion even when immersed in a thick swarm of many hundreds of other bats, and now researchers have discovered the secret. The winged mammals raise the pitch of their echolocation calls to make them stand out against "jamming signals". 13th December 2006 Built in compass helps bats find their way home Big brown bats use magnetic field to navigate long distance. 6th December 2006 Fewer Bats and Bees Mean Trouble for Crops - NRDC Most plants need to be pollinated by birds, bees, bats and other animals and insects to reproduce. And scientists say a decline in pollinators may spell trouble for crops. 19th October 2006 Rabies researchers to kill 50 bats - The Scotsman Protected wild bats are to be captured in the UK and sent to Germany where they will be killed for research into rabies. 22nd August 2006 Rare bats take to new villa roost - BBC News One of the rarest bats in Europe has begun colonising a new summer roost, created four years ago at an historic Roman site in Gloucestershire. 14th August 2006