

Stanford students capture the flight of birds on very high-speed video - arepb
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/july/bird-flight-secrets-070213.html

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Moral_
It's interesting how much we can learn from the way natural selection has
designed things.

This reminds me of the kid who built a solar tree which produced much more
energy than normal 'linear' solar panels[0].

[0] [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/boy-genius-13-year-
ol...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/boy-genius-13-year-olds-solar-
tree-produces-50-more-power/)

~~~
nether
Which was thoroughly debunked:
[http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/blog-
debun...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/blog-
debunks-13-year-old-scientists-solar-power-breakthrough/41520/)

We also rarely never see 360 degree rotating objects in animals, which is why
hearts pump instead of containing rotating impellers, like newer artificial
heart designs: [http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/artificial-
heart...](http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/artificial-heart-
produces-no-pulse-keeps-alive-183823901.html)

~~~
DougWebb
I hadn't read about that artificial heart design before. I'm guessing it's
going to turn out badly though. There's probably some unrecognized dependency
on the pumping behavior in some part of the circulatory system. Like, maybe
arteries will harden much more quickly if they aren't regularly stretched, or
cells won't dump their waste as efficiently without the changes in pressure in
the capillaries around them.

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sporro
Awesome. I love parrotlets.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPRp0VaQ0s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPRp0VaQ0s)

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VladRussian2
now, if they add some kind of smoke [non-damaging to birds of course] to
visualize airflow or some modernized version using some safe laser of
something like this
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren_photography](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren_photography)

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jerryhuang100
Similar flight studies have been done in flies:

Visually mediated motor planning in the escape response of Drosophila.
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208010488)

