biomechanics
awild | February 23, 2010A video from Cambridge University highlights an infectiously enthusiastic Chris Clemente as he figures out how ants stick to smooth surfaces:
Wow.
Two things strike me about the video. First, they simplified the science for a lay audience without fundamentally changing it. That's something of a rarity, as any scientist who has seen their work covered in the media can attest. Second, they did this while retaining a sense of humor and the strong sense of humanity in the scientific process.
Most scientists I know have a similarly intense fascination with their subjects- that's a rich vein for…
grrlscientist | July 18, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, flight speed, birds, ornithology, aerodynamics, evolution
Not Bad, But Not Perfect
A peregrine falcon keeps a close eye as she circles her nest in St. Louis.
A new survey of 138 species of birds finds that closely-related birds fly at roughly the same speeds and that no birds are perfect flying specimens.
Image: Tom Gannam (AP) [larger]
When it comes to flight speeds, human-made contraptions, such as airplanes, conform to basic aerodynamic scaling rules, which generate predictions based on how much an object weighs and how large its wings are. However, those…
grrlscientist | May 4, 2007tags: Venus flytrap, plant, biology, mechanics
A Venus flytrap lies open, waiting for an insect to set off its trap. Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan and colleagues have shown that the plant uses stored elastic energy to operate its hinged leaves.
Image: Yoel Forterre.
How does the venus flytrap accomplish what most people cannot? How does a mere plant capture live flies? The mystery of the Venus flytrap's rapid movement lies in storing and releasing elastic energy, says Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, who is the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at Harvard University.…