Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell, PhD, is an instructor in Stanford's Department of Otolaryngology and a scientist who studies, among other things, how elephants hear. In this just-published Neurotalk podcast, Rodwell discusses her studies from the field, including how elephants use foot stomping and low-frequency vocalizations to communicate. "If you think of the earth as a trampoline and you have this 10-ton animal on the earth running, you're going to create a huge wave," she said of the seismic vibrations they create. Elephants can also use their big ears, and comparatively large malleus middle-ear bone, to hear, and draw still to listen, she noted.
The podcast details O'Connell-Rodwell's contributions to science as a writer and instructor of science communications at Stanford and for the New York Times, as well as her mission to encourage girls to pursue the hard sciences. She said:
As a woman in science, especially doing a little bit of physics, if you don't have a role model it's very difficult to try to imagine yourself [there]. So I got interested to get girls interested in the hard sciences because there's no reason why they shouldn't be there.
...
You have to get kids excited about science... One of the things that got me interested in entymology to begin with was that childlike enthusiasm for the miniature and the unknown.
She added, "In our minds it's a story, but it's not obvious to everyone else."
Previously: Elephants chat a bit before departing water hole, new Stanford research shows and Researcher dishes on African elephant soap opera
Photo in featured entry box by Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell and Timothy Rodwell
