Monthly Archives: December 2011

Rockets in Horse Poop

Have you ever spent the time to look closely at horse poop? Yeah, me either. It would be best to steer clear of those beautiful pieces of nature, not just because of its smell – but also because there are colonies of creatures that shoot projectiles all over the place. Yes, you guessed it. I’m […]

Misconceptions of the Bumblebee: an in-depth Analysis of an Aerodynamic Marvel

You have probably all heard, at one point or another, that the bumblebee is nothing short of a scientific enigma – that our greatest minds, who have managed to place a man on the moon, have yet to explain the aerodynamics of the bumblebee’s flight. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) this is all a misconception. Studies […]

Turbulence

So on my way back to BU after Thanksgiving break, I was trying to sleep on the airplane when everything started to shake. This got me to thinking, what causes turbulence during flight? In its basic form, turbulence is a disruption in the air flow over the wings of the plane (or bird). It can […]

Ant man Yonatan Munk joins the class

On November 9, 2011, our special guest (via Skype) was PhD candidate Yonatan Munk, from the Department of Integrative Biology, University of California at Berkeley. His class appearance can be seen in full on track 12 of the Bio-Aerial Locomotion collection on iTunes U. Yonatan Munk is writing his dissertation at this point, after working […]

Silence is Golden, Thanks to the Owl

Biologists have discovered several different reasons for which owls are able to fly in silence. The specific shape of the wing and the feathers have a lot to do with the cancellation of noise.   The serrated edges on the front of the owls wing help in channeling air smoothly over the wings, which reduces […]