Insects, including flower flies and hoverflies, have the unique ability to remain stationary in midair by rapidly beating their wings. This requires sideways stabilization and the production of lift, primarily produced by the downstroke. There are approximately 6, 000 species of hoverflies worldwide, with 62 found in America. Bees are another type of insect that can fly, as their rapid movement of their wings drags air towards their bodies, providing them with the lift they need to move.
Hovering is a powerful ability for insects to remain stationary in midair, often requiring rapid downward thrusts of their wings to generate upward lift. Some insects, like monarch butterflies, detect changes in day length and temperature to help them travel paths rivaling those of migratory birds. Flight in insects varies dramatically, from the clumsy patterns of some beetles and true bugs to the acrobatic maneuvers of dragonflies and many true flies.
Flies in the Family Syrphidae (flower flies and hover flies) are capable of astounding flight. Super slow-motion footage of moths in flight reveals how they use their abdomens to fine-tune the forces that keep them airborne. Flight muscles need to release aerodynamic power from the wings into the air to sustain a powered flight.
Hoverflies can also hover, which is an uncommon ability in insects. To do so, an animal must generate enough lift to pull its body into the air without any aid from wind. Hoverfly hovering behavior is unlike that of hummingbirds, as they do not feed in midair. Many hoverfly species prey upon pest insects, including ants, spiders, and other insects.
| Article | Description | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Why are flies so poor at hovering in one place compared … | A: There’s a whole family of flies whose ability to hover almost motionless in the air, has earned them the colloquial name of “hoverflies”. | quora.com |
| Footage reveals how insects use their bodies to hover | Footage reveals how moths use their abdomens in flight control, bending their bodies to fine-tune the forces that keep them airborne. | bbc.com |
| The aerodynamics of hovering insect flight. I. The quasi-steady … | Weis-Fogh tested the assumption for hovering animal flight, where unsteady effects are most pronounced, and concluded that most insects indeed hover according … | royalsocietypublishing.org |
📹 Hoverflies: A Gardeners Best Friend.
We are used to seeing hoverflies everywhere. They are very common insects in the UK. What their larva eat will amaze you, and …
What Can Hover In The Air?
The ability to hover refers to an aircraft's capability to remain stationary in the air without moving forward or backward, contrasting with typical flying, which involves forward motion. There are two primary types of hovering: stationary and forward hovering. Despite the intriguing concept of hovering, traditional airplanes are not designed for this purpose; they require forward motion to generate lift.
The key to an aircraft's ability to hover lies in advanced engineering technologies, such as vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) systems. Some military aircraft, like the Harrier Jump Jet and the Lockheed Martin F35B, possess capabilities to hover due to specific design features, such as thrust vectoring and lift jets.
Conversely, commercial passenger planes cannot hover because of their size and design, which are optimized for forward flight. While certain aircraft, such as helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey, can hover effectively, traditional airplanes maintain continual movement relative to the ground. The primary forces keeping these flying entities airborne are lift and drag, which must be balanced for sustained flight. Overall, while some aircraft can hover briefly, the vast majority, especially commercial airplanes, are not built for such functionality and always require airspeed to stay aloft.
Why Do Bugs Fly Right At You?
Flies, particularly houseflies, are attracted to humans due to various factors, including the presence of natural oils, salt, and dead skin cells on the body. They are scroungers by nature, drawn to food, garbage, and even feces—similar to their interest in human bodies for their resources. These insects can be viewed as tiny bio-robots programmed with fundamental instincts: eat, drink, reproduce, and explore. Their behavior often leads them to congregate around humans, especially when food is nearby or they detect scents akin to their preferred sources of nourishment.
Flies are also attracted to carbon dioxide, heat, and moisture emitted by humans. While at picnics or barbecues, their presence can become bothersome, leading to the misconception that they target people specifically. Instead, they might be flying toward light sources, with humans inadvertently obstructing their path.
Moreover, flies can sense body heat and sweat; landing on people to consume salt and moisture. They actively explore their environment for nutrients or mates, often driven by their instinctual need for survival. While products like citronella oil or DEET can repel them, their attraction to humans is largely unintentional. In essence, flies are drawn to us for sustenance and out of instinct rather than a deliberate desire to annoy.
Do Bugs Fly High In The Air?
Birds have been recorded flying at altitudes of 11, 278 meters (37, 000 feet), but various insects also reach impressive heights. Flies and butterflies can fly at 6, 000 meters (19, 685 feet), while locusts have been observed at 14, 764 feet (4, 500 m), and some true bugs, stoneflies, mayflies, and caddisflies exceed 16, 404 feet (5, 000 m). Key factors restricting the flying altitude of winged insects include air density, temperature, and oxygen availability, as gravitational pull weakens with elevation, affecting air properties.
Research highlighted in American Entomologist discusses the high-flying capabilities of insects, revealing how they adapt to extreme conditions. Larger insects, with body masses varying from 20 micrograms to 3 grams, display different flight patterns, where increased size leads to more wing area and lower wingbeat frequency. Some butterflies can fly as high as 20, 000 feet, while bumblebees have been found above 18, 000 feet on Mount Everest. These insects often utilize wind currents for migration, having the ability to select favorable thermal updrafts for travel, dispelling earlier notions of insect vulnerability to wind.
Although the thinner air presents challenges, insects adjust by modifying their flight patterns to navigate high altitudes. Their lightweight bodies help them ride rising air bubbles. Insects display remarkable adaptations to survive harsh high-altitude environments, showcasing that they are not limited by their size or weight in their quest for altitude.
Why Did I See A Plane Not Moving?
A plane appearing to stop midair is an optical illusion known as the parallax effect. This visual phenomenon occurs when objects seem to shift or move in relation to one another. In most cases, the illusion arises because the plane is caught in strong headwinds, which can cause it to move slowly through the air. It might also be slowing down, contributing to the effect.
Many are quick to attribute such visuals to bizarre glitches, but the explanation is rather straightforward: the plane seems stationary due to the parallax effect. If the plane is filmed from another moving aircraft, its relative speed can make it appear as though it is floating in place. Additionally, a lack of visual references from the ground can result in the brain misinterpreting motion.
This optical illusion often baffles those watching videos online, as the seemingly stationary aircraft can create a disconcerting effect. Such footage began to circulate on platforms like TikTok and Reddit, capturing public curiosity. Sarah Nelson, an aerospace educator, explains that when flying at a constant speed, a plane can feel as though it is not moving—especially at cruising altitude.
The phenomenon can be intensified when viewers are also in a moving vehicle, as the plane may appear stationary relative to their motion. Thus, what might seem like an eerie occurrence is primarily a result of how our visual perception interacts with motion, with environmental factors like headwinds playing a significant role.
What Insect Hovers In The Air?
Hover flies, also known as flower flies or syrphids, are beneficial insects belonging to the family Syrphidae. Adults range from 4-10 mm in length and feature dark, flattened bodies adorned with black and yellow markings. These insects are known for their unique hovering ability, often seen floating mid-air while darting back and forth. The larvae resemble maggots and can grow up to 10 mm, feeding on various organic matter, including decaying plant and animal material.
Hummingbirds, another fascinating species, comprise around 330 different varieties found throughout North and South America, as well as in parts of Central America and the Caribbean. They prefer warm, moist habitats near water sources and are commonly seen in forests and open areas. Notable for their hovering ability, hummingbirds can remain suspended in mid-air, a trait that aids in their feeding behavior by allowing them to access nectar from flowers.
Both hover flies and hummingbirds play critical roles in pollination. Hover flies are often mistaken for bees or wasps due to their appearance and mimicking behavior, serving to deter potential predators. Their remarkable hovering technique, which differs from bees and wasps that tend to move directionally, is a key characteristic. Hover flies are also recognized as vital to garden ecosystems, emerging in large numbers during spring and summer as they feed on nectar, while supporting a healthy environment through pollination. Similarly, the hovering skills of various birds, including the hummingbird, enhance their ability to capture food and interact with their surroundings.
Can Life Exist In A Vacuum?
Ecosystems might potentially create conditions for their own survival in space, similar to how photosynthetic life can function in a vacuum. This capability could significantly benefit human space exploration. Central to this is the presence of liquid water, defined by its triple point. However, humans are highly vulnerable to sudden exposure to space vacuum, as evidenced by the 1971 Soyuz 11 tragedy where three Soviet cosmonauts perished due to capsule depressurization.
The origin of life in a vacuum is deemed unlikely, as primitive life forms require hospitable environments with protective shells to retain solvents, conditions not naturally present in space. Although some biological materials on Earth can maintain such conditions, the long-term survival of life in a vacuum remains doubtful. Microbial life forms might endure short-term vacuum exposure, but sustaining life over extended periods with fluctuating environmental parameters is questionable.
Research, such as NASA’s Bioastronautics Data Book, highlights the lethal effects of decompression in vacuum, particularly the expansion of air in lungs that can cause fatal damage if breath is held. While certain microbes, spores, and fungi can survive space vacuum for years, complex life forms cannot thrive due to the inability to maintain liquid water and derive necessary energy. Life as we know it relies on liquid water, which evaporates at low pressures, making environments either too hot or too cold unsupportive for life. Additionally, complex organisms cannot obtain sufficient energy from their surroundings to sustain themselves in a vacuum.
Speculative concepts, like exotic matter-based life, remain unproven. Current evidence supports that only specific simple life forms can survive temporarily in space vacuum, and even these are limited by the harsh conditions. Overall, while microbial life might persist in space's vacuum for limited durations, thriving and sustaining complex life in such environments is not feasible with our current understanding and biological constraints.
Can All Flying Insects Hover?
Many insects possess the remarkable ability to hover, maintaining their height and controlling their position with precision. Among these, hoverflies, belonging to the Family Syrphidae, are particularly noteworthy with approximately 6, 000 species worldwide. Their adaptability to diverse climatic conditions allows them to thrive in almost all regions except Antarctica and deserts, and 62 species are specifically found in America.
Hoverflies are unique in that they spend most of their flight time hovering, unlike other insects that may only hover briefly before landing. This sustained hovering is achieved through sophisticated wing movement patterns that enable them to move forward, backward, sideways, and up and down, resembling helicopter-like motion.
Moths also exhibit hovering capabilities, utilizing their forewings and hindwings in unison. Super slow-motion footage has shown that moths fine-tune their hovering by pivoting their abdomens up and down, adjusting their body movements to stay airborne. Other flying insects, such as house flies, employ internal gyroscopes to stabilize themselves against surfaces like kitchen counters, showcasing the diverse mechanisms insects have evolved for flight control.
Unlike birds and other flying animals, insects lack direct muscle control over their wings. Instead, their flight is powered by muscles that move the wings indirectly, allowing for greater maneuverability despite having fewer wings—for example, flies have two wings instead of four. This setup grants them exceptional control and agility, enabling feats like hovering and rapid directional changes.
Insect flight manifests in various forms across different species. Dragonflies display breathtaking control, house flies exhibit exasperating agility, and hoverflies contribute significantly to ecosystems by visiting flowers and preying on pests like aphids and scale insects. While not all insects can fly—some have lost their wings through evolution—the majority of adult insects retain this ability, making flight a vital aspect of their survival and ecological roles.
Can Insects Survive In A Vacuum?
Spiders and insects with fragile bodies lacking exoskeletons are generally killed by vacuum suction. When such creatures are sucked into a vacuum cleaner, they may suffocate from the accumulated dirt within the vacuum bag. However, some bugs can survive the suction and remain alive in the vacuum bag, eventually crawling out. Japanese scientists have developed a method to equip insects with armor, enabling them to withstand the extreme vacuum conditions encountered in space.
While certain bugs might endure low-level vacuum environments temporarily, they typically succumb to the harsh conditions over time. Insects are inherently resilient, possessing unique physiological adaptations like the tracheal system, which facilitates gas exchange without the need for lungs. This system allows them to thrive in various environments, including those with fluctuating pressure levels.
Many common household insects, such as ants, spiders, fleas, flies, and roaches, can survive being vacuumed, depending on the specific conditions inside the vacuum cleaner. These insects are often used in laboratory settings, where vacuum devices like Dustbusters facilitate their transfer without causing immediate death. For instance, moths may die within hours or days, while centipedes and spiders might survive for weeks by feeding on other insects within the vacuum.
However, more fragile bugs are likely to perish from the suction itself. Additionally, some insects have evolved to handle rapid pressure changes, but most will ultimately die due to the lack of air and the boiling of their internal fluids in a vacuum. Scientific advancements, such as using common chemicals and scanning electron microscopes, have furthered the ability to protect insects in near-space vacuum conditions. Despite these adaptations, only a few organisms can fully survive in a vacuum environment, with many, like fruit fly larvae, being unable to withstand such extreme conditions.
Does Vacuuming Keep Bugs Away?
Establishing a routine of regular vacuuming is essential for pest prevention. Aim to vacuum high-traffic areas and hidden corners at least weekly to create a pest-resistant environment. While vacuuming can remove bugs, it may not necessarily kill them due to factors like the type of insect and vacuum strength. Many pests, including dust mites and fleas, can be adequately managed through vacuuming, although it might not eliminate all bed bugs, which feed on human blood at night. Maintaining cleanliness by vacuuming away food and debris deters insects.
Vacuuming alone may not eradicate a bed bug infestation, but regular cleaning of mattresses and other surfaces is recommended. It serves as an excellent preventive measure against future invasions. Vacuuming is most effective when bed bugs are undisturbed and clustered together. It can physically remove pests from mattresses, furniture, and floors, making it a crucial part of pest control strategies.
However, vacuuming alone may not suffice for severe infestations. It acts as a preliminary step for further pest control efforts, particularly for small pests like stink bugs and ladybugs. Some specialized vacuums may help eliminate fleas and make the environment less habitable for pests. It's important to note that while some bugs may die from vacuum suction, many survive, emphasizing that vacuuming should complement other pest management tactics.
Overall, regular vacuuming plays a significant role in controlling pest populations and maintaining cleanliness within the home.
📹 Is It True That Bumblebees Shouldn’t Be Able to Fly?
This video is sponsored by 1440. →Some of our favorites: …
The first time I discovered hover flies was two days ago, did my research & caught one this evening while hovering on my mint plants. The fact that they feed on nectar while the larvae feed on aphids changed the way I perceive the species. And to top it off, one of my amazing websites that almost never posts shared a article about what I’ve been amazed by today tonight. Huge thanks for the professional content you produce!
The other day I was at the bottom of the garden, closely examining a climbing rose. It was 9am warm sunny and very still. Around the rose were a cluster of about 6 Hoverflies which I always marvel at because of their effortless ability to hover in position like tiny drones. I instinctively held out my open hand under their little squadron. One then hovered about an inch above, then gently it landed on my palm. Things like that shouldn’t elate me but it did. I kept my hand there until it decided to lift off and rejoin the others. In this garden I have also observed the fascinating hovering Humming Bird Moth which I was able to article and uploaded to Youtube. Excellent article by the way. Fill the screen to see this amazing creature up close!
What I find especially cool about flies (Diptera) in general, and hover flies in particular, is that they use only a single pair of wings to fly, and the hind wings have evolved into the most incredible mechanosensory organs (called halters) which work to sense rotational movement and are what allow flies to, uh, fly so well. High-speed macro photography will show the club-like halters banging up and down in counterpoint to the flapping of the wings, acting like a vibrating structure gyroscope, transmitting rotation in the plane of oscillation via the campaniform sensilla (sensing strain loads similar to Golgi tendon organs in mammals) and chordotonal organs (stretch receptors). I have used the fact that Diptera evolved this function with modified hind wings and insects in the order Strepsiptera have convergently evolved similar functionality with their fore wings as evidence against “intelligent design” (but unfortunately proponents of ID are usually too uninformed of the basics of insect anatomy that they dismiss the argument as with “who can know the mind of God”) Anyway, I loved the footage of the larvae eating aphids! I’ve never seen that before.
This was INCREDIBLE to watch! I’ve always been terrified of them, because they’re loud and their print is intimidating. I assumed they were the large version of the smaller ones, whom I also believed were a type of sweat bee. I’m allergic to wasps/hornets so I’m already jumpy around anything that flies 😆 but now I can relax when I see these. Thank you!
Hi I’m new, and I want to say this website is absolutely incredible. It’s informative, entertaining, and has unbelievably professional production. I cannot overstate how much I appreciate this website for providing close-up looks at these animals and their lives that most people would never get the chance to enjoy. Best youtube find in a long, long time for me. Keep it up!!
I’ve enjoyed perusal hoverflies in action since I was a young kid. They remind of little, colourful insect drones with the way they move around with such precision. I figured out a while ago that they were great pollinators. It seems that whenever there are flowers in bloom and sunshine, hoverflied aren’t far away. I’m always stunned when people mistake them for wasps or some othet stinging insect. I had no idea that their larvae were great aphid predators. Good to know!
There’s another much larger hovering fly or bug that I’ve seen. We used to call them ‘property bugs’ when I was a kid because one was hovering in the middle of a woods trail coincidentally on a property line. When disturbed it would move but then return to that spot and continue hovering. How odd. This was 30+ years ago; northeastern US.
Just wooow. I don’t understand why is your website not growing as it is supposed to be. All the things you are doing here are challenging and time consuming and need lots of patience. We can understand the behaviour and life style of all of these tiny creatures only because of your hard works. And yet many people are not noticing your website, which is ridiculous. If it was a tech website it would have grown much more faster. This proves that we are living in a virtual world which has no meaning to what life is all about. There are tech website everywhere and most of them are gaining viewers but this website not much. This shows how greedy and selfish we human beings are. All we love is to make our living comfortable and easy by relying on new technology. One day human being will bear no meaning to life and we will be replaced by robots and machine. Please continue ur good works even if it is viewed by only a few followers because that few followers you are gaining are like ur family who really appreciate ur work from the cores of our hearts. A single sentence with a pure sense is much more meaningful than a long paragraph without any sense.
This thing was right I noticed them about two years ago and had mistaken them for really tiny bees. My Entomology is now caught up, but I find it horrifying that they are carnivorous in the larval stage. I have two fears diseases and being eaten alive. I even scream when Mario in super mario bros. 3 has a near encounter being swallowed by the bass enemy.
If bees were fixed-wing aircraft, there would be problems flying, but since it is not a fixed-winged aircraft, it flies quite nicely by flapping its wings. There are also issues with scale and how things get oddly different on such a small size… like dropping a dead bee off the Empire State Building won’t reach same terminal velocity as an elephant.
You’re so right about people misconstruing something and passing it on to naive students and it perpetuating itself. I had a really pretty good history professor, one of my favorites, who bought into the idea that being 50 was kind of surprising and a feat in the Middle Ages and Enlightenment, due to a very low average lifespan. You know, from a staggering rate of infant mortality and childhood deaths and fatal mishandling of childbirth and its effects on mothers (as well as having doctors not wash before reaching inside to feel the cervix, grab breech babies, etc). If you avoid that, you had a good chance of living into old age. Of course cancer was still a deal, and heart disease, and they were more likely to take people down without surgery and modern treatment. But dang. Talk about having all the right info and just… not realizing you’re applying it incorrectly. The stats don’t lie, you just don’t understand them and are applying your biases! Seeing someone who’s 60 wouldn’t be a once in a lifetime thing, of “Tell me your ways and how to obtain such good health, old and wise one.” It’s not like seeing a 125-year-old today or something. When people who ought to know better perpetuate things like this, it really makes me wonder.
“Hey, can you jot down on this napkin how a bee is able to fly?” “Yes. Wait, no! I can’t! We’re in a bar and we’ve been drinking and I’m just going off of my own memory of a bee’s mass, wing size, flap frequency and aerodynamic characteristics, but surely I’m doing everything correctly and we’ve just discovered that bees break physics.” “Wow, this is going to make a great story!” “Legendary.”
I have a question: It is an uncommon trope in some movies or TV shows to have a main character be poisoned and then to not suffer the effects of the poison because they spent the last X amount of time building up a immunity to said poison. Is this really possible? To me it just seems like you would be poisoning yourself more slowly rather than building up an immunity to the poison.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Let’s shake it up a little. Barry! Breakfast is ready! Ooming! Hang on a second. Hello? – Barry? – Adam? – Oan you believe this is happening? – I can’t. I’ll pick you up. Looking sharp. Use the stairs. Your father paid good money for those. Sorry. I’m excited. Here’s the graduate. We’re very proud of you, son. A perfect report card, all B’s. Very proud. Ma! I got a thing going here. – You got lint on your fuzz. – Ow! That’s me! – Wave to us! We’ll be in row 118,000. – Bye! Barry, I told you, stop flying in the house! – Hey, Adam. – Hey, Barry. – Is that fuzz gel? – A little. Special day, graduation. Never thought I’d make it. Three days grade school, three days high school. Those were awkward. Three days college. I’m glad I took a day and hitchhiked around the hive. You did come back different. – Hi, Barry. – Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good. – Hear about Frankie? – Yeah. – You going to the funeral? – No, I’m not going. Everybody knows, sting someone, you die. Don’t waste it on a squirrel. Such a hothead. I guess he could have just gotten out of the way. I love this incorporating an amusement park into our day. That’s why we don’t need vacations. Boy, quite a bit of pomp.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Let’s shake it up a little.
I have a couple of professors that finished research last year into the fluid dynamics around a insect wing in flight. Complcated is an understatement. Insects should loss lift when transitioning between strokes but by rotating the wing at the right time at the end of each stoke they can keep lift until the next stroke. It’s quite fascinating
There is s rather serious error in this article- from about 7:05 to 7:23. Effectively, it states that there was a burst of 1,000 rads at 15 miles from ground zero at Hiroshima. This is very wrong. 1000 rads is enough to prompt CNS death in most of the human population- effectively, it means that 95% or more of everyone within 15 miles of Hiroshima would have died within a few days of the blast from radiation effects- but, this didn’t happen. Most of the deaths were from blast or heat. Assuming one wanted to maximize the 1000 rad ring from a 15 Kt device, according to NukeMap, the radius of that ring would be 1200 *meters*, not 15 miles.
As a super longtime viewer and fan; when Mr Simon gets the smirk and exposes that dry, yet fantastically hilarious commentary or said subjects, I can only imagine that the world becomes a bit closer to an ultimately perfect society. It brings be great joy to say the least. Thank You! Wishing you all the best!
“And we can only assume the experiment was more accurate because it involved lasers which are always necessity for an experiment to be considered fully scientific” – As a scientist, I can confirm that when the lasers come out, the science definitely becomes more scientific. I’ve spent the last year of my life struggling to repeat the non-laser version of an experiment with lasers…
I worked at an ice-cream plant and we had cockroaches in the building. one day I caught one and brought it into the freezer with me where I worked, it was -20 F. After about 15 minutes, the cockroach stopped moving and I left it on a shelf for my 8-hour shift. After work, I brought the cockroach into the locker room so I could get changed. After about two minutes the cockroach wiggled an antenna, shook itself off, and ran away. I was quite impressed with that.
according to all known laws of aviation there is no way a bee should be able to fly, it’s wings are small to get it’s fat little body off the ground, the bee of course flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is possible. “Barry breakfast is ready” “coming” and that’s all I managed to memorise
using calculations for flight software I did some quick calculations of what size wing area would be needed to lift a bee, turns out the wings would need to be 7inches long, 14inches tip-to-tip assuming the wing had the same width as a bee and the weight was that of a bee, there is something in that royal honey theory me thinks, lol
Ok…I watch your articles on your various websites pretty much every day. So my husband told me today that he doesn’t want to listen to it EVERY DAY or several TIMES a day. I asked if every OTHER day would be fine. He said yes. I said, well that’s why God made headphones 🎧 😂💜 I’m not going to stop perusal!
I knew the answer already but still came for bonus facts and explanation 😀 What I usually heard was that “they have too small wings to fly” which really says nothing about the issue because the actual movement can influence lift quite drastically and the frequency is a bit part aswell. You can have tiny wings, you just need to flap them more often. One interesting aspect about flapping wings is that the lift adapts faster to the new angle of attack of the wing than the drag. Airplanes stall when the angle of attack gets too big because the Drag eventually outweighs the Lift at high angle of attacks. When you rapidly change angle of attacks again and again like when flapping a wing, you can use really high angle of attacks to achieve lift while the Drag lags behind. Therefor if the frequency if flapping is high enough, you can create much more lift than you ever can with stationary wings. Nature knows it’s stuff 🙂
There is a article in which a beetle outer wing cover, that is both ofbthem from a dead beetle, are shown to levitate. The gentleman who was supposted to have developed a platform to which the underside had be covered by these wing casings. By trying the put one on top of the other( not easy to do) the top one does without question levitate, and movement while in this state tendes to be somewhat like magnites of like poles. How ever, clearly there are some forces at work here that are not normal. A bee has no wing covers or at least as far as i know, and not being willing to kill bees off to obtain wing parts, i can only go from what i see. There are what looks like veins that appear on the underside of these covers and it was found that these are connected with a cone shape that has an opening at the top. I am wondering if when the wings are moved the omit a high pitch tone well above our hearing which creates something the can interfer with the air round the insect creating an area ar densidy is then effected çuringbflight, I would like to know a lot more about this guy and his glue on wings to his plaform, as although it was a lot time ago there were plenty of people who witnessed his results, and can only imagine that this was looked into a lot more that just mentioned in the article, does any one know????
Cockroaches are absolutely beautiful creatures!.I have a small cockroach farm, the size is about a one bedroom apartment. My delightful creatures breed under the stove, and the fridge mostly . I sometimes see them take early morning walks on my dinner plates, among the utensils and many other places ! Sometimes they surprise me hiding in the cereal box ! I love the little darlings the most, when I turn on the light in the middle of the night and I see them out in force. They are galloping on the walls, on the ceiling its a glorious sight really . I dont know what I’d do without their unconditional love !
As an engineer, I must say that it is very typical for engineers to do “back of the envelope” calculations regardless of the environment. Talking about how bees fly in front of an engineer is like putting a paint brush in front of a painter, talking about how pretty flowers are, and him not painting one. I would actually find it hard to believe that an engineer would sit and pounder how a bee flys without doing calculations.
There are articles of the past which not only described how the physics of bees and beetles explain that it is a curiosity that they can fly. But they do. There are also articles which state that a tandem rotor helicopter should not fly due to the physics involved. They not only fly but are used in heavy lifting.
9:58 shudder He’s just like… propped up there. All causal. “Hey buddy. How about that sports team? Intense weather we’ve been having lately, amiright? Craaaazzzyyy.” Ugh. Welp. Off to bed for me. Sure to be sound sleep, not at all propelled by some impromptu nightmare fuel. Nope. Best rest of my life. Pray for me.
My favourite along these lines is that kangaroos can’t jump – if you work out the energy required for a single hop, and then multiply it by the number of hops required to travel the distances that have been reported, you end up concluding that they’d need to eat several times their body weight daily. The secret, of course, is that kangaroos don’t just hop and stop and hop and stop – they bounce, so most of the energy for one hop comes from the previous hop.
If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re probably in the wrong room. Not saying that 1440 is a terrible sponsor, but they do have a terrible slogan. I consider you to be a higher level of content provider, so I hope that you don’t mind me being a little more critical of your work, or in this case, who you partner with. Mahalo for being an outstanding science communicator.
The best vers I heard was an aviation engineer did calculations of a bumble bees wing area vs body size and weight and determined flight shouldn’t happen, not long ago some scientists put a special harness w motions measuring gear on several cats and the harness measured inertia and speed up a wall and jumping that cats shouldn’t be able to do relative to body size, what all this fails to take into consideration is nature exceeds human understanding all the time, it’s not them being wrong it’s our assumptions that we understand nature at all, we grasp some thru science but we have a long way to go. Never tell a bee it can’t fly, most are female and girls tend to prove ppl wrong when told they can’t do something and you’ll get stung, cats, anyone w a cat knows cats have their own book on the laws of physics and many pages are dif than ours. Lightning does stuff that we don’t understand but if you stand out in a storm and say ‘you can’t do that’ to a storm you’ll prob get zapped and killed. Ppl have done this here in central Fl, aka Lightning Alley, #1 for lighting in the western hemisphere and #3 in the world but def #1 for golfers getting zapped, ‘that cloud was miles away’, yeah, lightning can travel 20 miles sideways w no prob and create a smoking golfer. ‘Fore’ Zaaapppp ! ‘Look Bob got the shot but he’s dead’.
For some time, we didn’t have the data to understand how bumblebees or hummingbirds could fly. The calculations didn’t balance. Answers similar to: X = 2X were common. We were missing something and we knew it. We learned more an we figured it out. The issue was a lack of understanding the physics due to not having the ability to take the required pictures so we could observe the way the wings moved and flexed. With high speed cameras we gained the ability to build accurate models and to perform the tests that showed how these rapidly moving wings function.
Here is a question. Do Bumble Bees fly like UAP’s? More directly in reference to what Cmdr Fravor saw hovering over the ocean above a white churning water area. His description of that incident sounded a lot like how a bumble bee flys. Moving sort of erraticaly zig zagging about, turning on a dime in another direction. sounds interesting wouldn’t you say? 😀
Think one could rid a house of most insect pests by placing a radioactive rock in the house while gone for vacation then have it brought back to a lab when it’s done it’s job… or would that make everything in the house radioactive? I understand that even if it where possible it wouldn’t be practical, but as a though experiment… is it theoretically possible though.
10:47 You forgot an important detail about this: The reason the can survive up to a month withouth their head is not because of them bleeding out slowly or lose their brain (wich they haven’t) or something similar: i’ts because in ther head they lose, was their mouth: So the reason is actually because they starve to death ’cause they can’t eat (and if they via lets say, their legs, they’d countinue living) How crazy is that?
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Size and mass have a great deal to do with it also. Make a bee the size of an airplane, it will never fly, and die of suffocation soon after it tries. Anything related to surfaces and cross-sectional area increases by the square of the scale. Anything related to size and mass increases by the cube of the scale.
I know that you should not kill bees on the whole. They are essential for pollenating crops. They are on the decline because of pesticides and environmental causes. I had a nest of them in my shed. I could not get my lawn mower out without being attacked. I got stung by one. They had to go. I inadvertently found out that ant spray works better on bumble bees than wasp spray.
You’d think the existence of the internet and the ability to quickly and easily either confirm or refute such claims would stamp out these sort of myths, but it actually seems to be making the problem worse. I’ve noticed this a lot with folk etymologies and backronyms being spread widely on social media despite the fact that the first several search results are sites debunking them. Same thing with this bee nonsense.
Frequency…vibrational frequency is how they accomplish this reality shattering feet…I’ve also heard to keep them calm and relaxed during honey harvest you can hold the image of a hexagon in your mind and being similar to their honeycomb shape they feel at ease….say what!! That’s nutty af..hope it’s true
I do not like quoting fiction movies, because they are fictional, even those “Based” on real events, but life does find a way. Bees don’t know they’re not supposed to be able to fly, they just beat the hell out of their wings and go on with their life. P.S.- Some Cock Roach species actually suffered extinctions at the end Permian mass extinction. The Mother of all mass extinctions.
Keep in mind with cockroaches though that they couldn’t thrive without humans. Cockroaches in the wild get easily out-competed. It’s only in a human environment where food is more plentiful and competition and predators (only likely serious predator in a home would be rates) scarcer that their population can explode.
Kinda makes you wonder why certain insects devote such large amounts of DNA resources for radiation tolerance.. is it just because they have a larger genome size and therefore a greater “random chance” of the necessary gene(s) to be active? ..Or are they preparing for something we don’t know about (yet)? :/
Perhaps you can answer a problem that has been ‘bugging’ me (pun intended, given the ”nature’ of this article) My problem is that If an airplanes wing has a cross section designed to provide lift by pressure from the airflow pushing it upward – why can airplanes fly upside down? Surely the same air flow that pushes upward, should now push downward on the upside down wing and give the pilot a crashing headache. (can’t resist those lovely puns)
I believe if you look further the truth is bees do not fly – they levitate. Their wings flap at a certain speed and create a magnetic field in their thorax. They vibrate at the Schumann resonance – the harmonic resonance of the earth. Bees are not the only creatures who levitate Scarab beetles do it by using their wings which have Power shapes – microscopic hexagons which again produce a magnetic field. There’s even a TEDtalk about replicating the power shapes from Scarab beetle’s wings.
Gravity has much less of an effect on Bee’s and other small/low mass lifeforms, meaning it takes little energy for them to overcome gravitational effects and so they can fly, and fall from great heights without doing damage to themselves. The same applies to Ants, which are known for being super strong, being able to carry ten times their own mass; its not that they’re solely super strong, but more that they are carrying other low mass objects, giving the impression they are super strong when its just that the Earths gravitational pull has little effect on them.
I just knew a damn wasp would be in the high level for surviving radiation. I’m a live and let live kind of person except for wasps, cockroaches, and fire ants. No matter how many wasps you kill, they are still HERE. That said I can’t deal with cockroaches. No way, no how. Filthy things. TU Simon and team.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Let’s shake it up a little. Barry! Breakfast is ready!
Cockroach is dependant on human civilization. They thrive in cities because of the plenty of human waste they can eat, the warmth of human buildings and protection from predation by larger insects kept out of human homes. Without humans, cockroaches would have to struggle for survival like the rest of the remaining ecosystem and their numbers would size accordingly.
So, okay, the cockroach won’t inherit the nuclear – destroyed world but other insects can. I submit that other organisms can and do survive the devastation of Chernobyl, one being wolves. I don’t know the environmental or other biology or physiology behind it or the physics involved, but wolves returned to Chernobyl and so have relatively rare plant species. The wolves’ skin and fur are very radioactive, yet they and other organisms in the area thrive. I’ll just leave this here for you to ruminate on.