April 30, 2013
Rachel has received an NSF funded East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) research scholarship. She’ll be travelling to Japan in June, and explicitly working on the evolution of echolocation in dolphins and whales. This work will use CT scans of fossil skulls and earbones, and will start the process of working out when these animals developed their amazing sensory abilities (which allow them to communicate, find food, and avoid predators). This work is also critical from a conservation point-of-view…as many of the species she’s studying are endangered, and modern ship engines have ben shown to have terrible impacts on their abilities to echolocate.