Flowering plants carry the male portion of their genetic material in their pollen. When bees fly from one flower to another, pollen is spread from plant to plant. If pollen from one flower is able to reach another flower of the same species, then that plant will be able to form seeds an...
The older female workers do just that! They're the field bees we see gathering pollen and nectar from flowers in the spring and summer. Nectar is the liquid that will be turned into honey back at the hive. Each day, these bees might fly several miles from the hive just to get nectar...
Whales gotta swim, and birds gotta fly – and when they do, they flap their wings and fins at a rate determined by the same simple mathematical expression and coefficient of proportionality. The expression, which relates wingbeat frequency to body mass and wing area, is valid regardless of th...
"Engineers say they can prove that a bumblebee can't fly," said Michael Dickinson, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. "And if you apply the theory of fixed wing aircraft to insects, you do calculate that they can't fly. You have to use something different." Dickinson...
Annie Robinson from the University of Aberdeen said: "It has been really exciting to be involved in the creation of an interactive learning course on pollinators which can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. The X-Polli:Nation bumblebee and butterflyspeciesidentification tools are a fantasti...
If by some chance we do emerge from our current form into a higher state of being, we'll surely need more energy. And without some unforeseen physics breakthrough, the sun is the only way we'll manage to fuel our development for thousands or millions of years to come. Related Articles ...
As a drain fly stands near a lapping pool of water, oncoming waves can threaten to maul or submerge them, if they do not fly away to safety. In Fig.7b the fly does not move as the wave impacts its right legs, pins them to the floor, and passes over the top (\(t = 0\)–100...
interrupt the beetle's unique hydration process at the molecular level, perhaps by designing molecules that can do so. Those molecules could then be incorporated into more eco-friendly pesticides that target the red flour beetle and similar pests while not harming more beneficial ins...
Bats make sounds the same way we do, by moving air past their vibrating vocal chords. Some bats emit the sounds from their mouth, which they hold open as they fly. Others emit sound through their nose. It's not fully understood how the bat's sound production works, but scientists ...
How can an insect have both synchronous and asynchronous properties and still fly? To answer this question researchers realized that using robots would allow them to perform experiments that could never be done on insects. For example, they would be able to equip the robots with motors that coul...