If you were to design wings for flying fruit, how best to optimize the wing shape? If you don’t already know the answer to that, you might begin your knowledge adventure by reading this study: “Curving to Fly: Synthetic Adaptation Unveils Optimal Flight Performance of Whirling Fruits,” Jean Rabault, Richard A. Fauli, and Andreas Carlson, […]
“During high-speed pursuit of prey, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) has been observed to swing its tail while manoeuvring (e.g. turning or braking) but the effect of these complex motions is not well understood.” Prompting, perhaps, the question ‘what is a cheetah’s tail actually for?’ A joint US / South African study (2016) has made made […]
“Major discoveries always come with a story: Newton had his apple, Archimedes had his bath tub, and Dr. Frank E. Fish, while shopping for a gift, examined a sculpture of a humpback whale in a shop and issued a fatefully inaccurate observation: ‘Look at that. The sculptor put the bumps on the wrong side of the flipper.’ […]
The 16 feathers traditionally used to construct traditional shuttlecocks are normally organised in an overlapping spiral arrangement. As a result, the shuttlecock tends to whirl in flight, adding spin-stability to what would otherwise be a more haphazard trajectory. But raising the question, in which direction should it rotate? The Badminton World Federation (which oversees international […]
“The shuttlecock soars upward In a parabola of whiteness, Turns, And sinks to a perfect arc.” This extract, from one of the few eminent poems to prominently feature shuttlecocks, is by Amy Lawrence Lowell, (Men, Women and Ghosts, A Roxbury Garden,1916) and is quoted in the latest research regarding the aerodynamics of shuttlecocks. A study by […]