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Comment by Balgair | Hacker News Reader

One fun thing to do with a swarm of bug near a light is to take out your keys and shake them.

Keys will often ring in the ultrasonic and poorly mimic the frequencies that a lot of bats use.

If you have a population of bats that hunt near you, the bugs will typically just drop. Like, just drop to the ground as fast as they can.

They know the sound of hunting bats and your keys may be just close enough to that sound that they think they're being hunted. So they do the best that they can to get out of the way and go with gravity. At least, that's my theory.

Fun little thing to do as a bet or with the kiddos.

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Interesting, I heard a story once that you can catch bats with keys: Put a bunch of keys in a sock and throw that in the air. If there is a bat near enough it might dive for and grab the object, then it gets drawn to the ground because the keys are too heavy. There you can catch it if you are quick.

Might be an urban myth, though it seems like it might just work.

more of a rural myth, I guess ;D

Note that depending on your area this might be illegal. In France for example, bats are a protected species and it’s forbidden to kill or capture them.

Also depending on your area, there's a chance the bat may scratch you without you realizing it, and a few months or years later, you suddenly go mad and die in agony.

At least I'm more scared of rabies than any government fine. By the time you know something is wrong, you're already a corpse that's about to remember to stop moving.

Rabies can lay that dormant? And there’s no test?

Apparently, yes, and while there are tests, it's probably too late once symptoms have appeared:

> Rabies virus travels through the nerves to the spinal cord and brain. This process can last approximately 3 to 12 weeks. The animal has no signs of illness during this time.[^1]

> Several tests are necessary to diagnose rabies ante-mortem (before death) in humans; no single test is sufficient. Tests are performed on samples of saliva, serum, spinal fluid, and skin biopsies of hair follicles at the nape of the neck.[^2]

> Once clinical signs of rabies appear, the disease is nearly always fatal, and treatment is typically supportive. Less than 20 cases of human survival from clinical rabies have been documented.[^3]

[^1]: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/transmission/body.html

[^2]: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/diagnosis/animals-humans.html

[^3]: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/symptoms/index.html

I've read somewhere about the case that took over a year, but can't find the link. Following citations on[0], this paper[1] says:

"The incubation period is typically 1–3 months, but can vary from a few days to more than 1 year [1,4]. Cases of up to 6 years incubation period have been discussed[5]."

And this is specifically in humans, not in animals in general.

There is no test that I know of, but vaccine is very effective even after you got it (but before actual symptoms show up), so if you suspect you're infected, you go and get the shots. Thing is, AFAIK those are quite painful, so it's not something you want to take as prophylaptic unless you're at high risk (e.g. working as a vet).

All this adds up to what I wrote earlier: you get random bat or squirrel bite, tiny enough that you forget about it in moments, and a few months later, you suddenly die.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies

[1] - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14760584.2015.1...

I got bit by a bat recently and the four rounds of shots weren’t painful. Uncomfortable, maybe so.

Who in the world would know anything about it if you're out at night catching bats with a sock?

If you know that it’s a protected species you might want not to do that, even if there’s no one to see you.

I'll assume that somebody out catching bats at night have their reasons.

Seems like a great way to get rabies.

Or a new strain of COVID...

or superpowers

Wrong, Batman had no superpowers. He was just good at martial arts, and had access to some nice equipment (because he was a billionaire).

So the costume was basically just a kink?

The underwear worn outside of the pants are a dead giveaway.

Yep. There was one early Batman series which revealed that his father had once dressed as a bat-man for a costume party. Batman wore the costume when apprehending a criminal who had done something awful to Batdad and the criminal, seeing the costume thought it was Batdad returned to life and panicked falling to his death.¹

⸻

1. Likely inaccurate description of the plot based on 45-year-old memories of reading the story in a library collection.

He had superhuman thirst for justice

Justice playing a metaphor for little flying insects in this case, upon which Batman places his hyperfocus. It makes sense.

Batman’s super power was his bank account(s)

Camping in Lassen area of Northern California as a kid, I would tease the bats by throwing a ball of tinfoil in the air. The bats would chase it.

some moths have countermeasures

John said, “Listen, you can hear the jammer.” The what? “The jammer,” he said, “Watch the moths.” It turns out the moths, through evolution, had developed their own electronic countermeasures to jam the bat radar.

https://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told-you-i%e2%80%99d-...

fascinating! There's also a wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echolocation_jamming?useskin=v...

Well you have no sources and you can be full of it. But following the scientific method, I’ll try your hypothesis next chance I have! :D

Too bad it's winter and I'll probably forget this before I have a chance to!

If this turns out to not be true, and just said for the amusement of thinking of all the people jiggling their keys at insects, it reminds me of something a friend in high-school said to me:

"If you peel a banana, take a bite off the top, and then poke your index finger in to the middle of it, it will split in to perfect thirds".

Upon trying this, I discovered it was not true, and my friend just wanted to see me stick my finger in a banana...

I never tried (yet) but a quick search reveals a lot of people filming the "banana split in thirds" action, e.g. https://youtu.be/NoGXTXsamt4?si=ANNTdtcu1trOdQXP

It's still technically possible it's a hoax but, boy, that's a lot of effort to provide fake content to support the hoax.

?t=40s

Nice. Maybe GP got the wrong end, or it is a test of ripeness, or perhaps 'bite off the end' ruined it (it at least didn't seem to be necessary in the linked video).

funnily my friend just discovered that you can split it into thirds a few day ago and now does it whenever he eats a banana

A banana does actually third itself when split.

I'm still going to shake my keys at the next swarm I passby.

Ha, no way!

All this time I thought this was him being silly!

(For the record, the banana did NOT split nicely)

"If you hand is larger than your face . . . "

Actually, I do this when making a banana split. Cut a piece off the top and then slowly press the banana into thirds. Then, lower the banana, with the bottom part of the banana still intact, into a tall glass. Smoother with cream, ice cream and/or syrup. Makes for a solid banana split.

This is also hilarious too: https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/17jw3gm/d...

Apparently bees also drop when you turn the light off:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=OmG0OT6MWC8

I need to buy an ultrasonic whistle and experiment with this! :)

Have you ever done that?

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