This is mind blowing. It is very well written, and easy to understand. Another very cool use of scanning electron microscopy, and computational fluid dynamics.

This is mind blowing. It is very well written, and easy to understand. Another very cool use of scanning electron microscopy, and computational fluid dynamics. "Our experiment combines three-dimensional reconstructions of morphology and kinematics in one of the smallest insects, the beetle Paratuposa placentis (body length 395 μm)." Check out the size of the beetle! Another interesting thing to ponder is how flight is achieved/controlled, at such small scale. This goes far beyond the standard discussions between lift and thrust. "Compared with larger sizes, flight at small sizes is dominated by viscous air friction rather than inertial forces resulting from the acceleration of the surrounding air. This competition between friction and inertia is key for flight at all size scales and thus applies to all animals that move through air."