Leaping and falling generally lead to landing, which can be difficult to do. This study considers the problem as it involves cats and legged space robots: “Analysis of Cushioned Landing Strategies of Cats Based on Posture Estimation,” Li Zhang, Liangliang Han, Haohang Liu, Rui Shi, Meiyang Zhang, Weijun Wang, Xuyan Hou, Biomimetic, vol. 13, no. […]
Ig Nobel Prize-winning scientists who discovered that dung beetles use the Milky Way to navigate have now learned (together with some colleagues) how certain bees probably manage to tamp down traffic congestion. Their study is: “Accelerated Landing in a Stingless Bee and Its Unexpected Benefits for Traffic Congestion,” Pierre Tichit, Isabel Alves-dos-Santos, Marie Dacke and […]
Of all the highly-evolved skills that chickens can be said to have, flying’s not one of them. So although those concerned with animal-welfare will no-doubt welcome moves (afoot in some quarters) to provide more space for egg-laying hens, some have noted that : “This larger, more complex environment permits expression of behaviors not seen in […]
Improbable is simply: What you don’t expect. When Neil Armstrong stood on the moon, on August 20, 1969, he disintegrated eons of expectation. Throughout almost all of human history, almost no one, anywhere, ever, expected that anyone would actually, in fact, really travel to the moon. The video below shows the arrival at and on the […]
