Proponents of the spontaneous intelligence school of thought have long criticized the scientific community for its inability to explain certain natural phenomena, such as the flight of bees, arguing that a deity, rather than evolution, is responsible for the creation of complex life forms. Now, science has decoded this mystery.
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Honeybees flap their wings so quickly that studying their movements is a challenge. |
Using a combination of high-speed digital cameras and a robotic model of bee wings, researchers have uncovered the flight mechanisms of honeybees.
For many years, humans have attempted to understand animal flight behavior based on the aerodynamic principles of airplanes and helicopters, according to Douglas Altshuler, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology. “Over the last decade, biologists have gained substantial knowledge by conducting experiments with robots capable of flapping their wings freely like animals.”
Scientists analyzed images captured from hours of footage of bees and used robots to mimic their movements, equipped with sensors to measure force.
Analysis reveals that the flight mechanisms of bees are stranger than we think.
“Honeybees flap their wings very quickly,” Altshuler states. “Fruit flies, which are much smaller, flap their wings 200 times per second. A honeybee, which is about 80 times larger in body size, can flap its wings 230 times in the same amount of time.”
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Douglas Altshuler |
It is indeed surprising because as insects become smaller, their aerodynamic capabilities decrease, and to compensate, they tend to flap their wings faster.
“This is simply to keep the bees airborne without falling to the ground, as they need to transport nectar and pollen in large quantities, sometimes equal to their body weight, back to the hive.” Altshuler explains.
To understand how honeybees carry heavy loads, researchers made them fly in a small chamber filled with a mixture of oxygen and helium at a lower density than regular air. This condition forced the bees to exert more effort to stay aloft, providing scientists an opportunity to observe their compensatory mechanisms during this additional task.
The result was that bees performed the extra work by stretching their wing spans without adjusting their flapping frequency.
Scientists say this discovery could lead to the design of models for aircraft that can hover in the air while carrying heavy loads, serving various purposes such as disaster monitoring after earthquakes and tsunamis.
T. An (according to LiveScience)
