6 ms·

Stanford students capture the flight of birds on very high-speed video

• sporro 13y ago
  Awesome. I love parrotlets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPRp0VaQ0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPRp0VaQ0s
• jerryhuang100 13y ago
  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/S0960982208010488 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208...
• Moral_ 13y ago
  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-olds-solar-tree-produces-50-more-power/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/boy-genius-13-year-ol...
  • jopof 13y ago
    That was debunked in the pages of this very website: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2906538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2906538 Please don't site Wired as a reliab;e source.
  • nether 13y ago
    Which was thoroughly debunked: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/blog-debunks-13-year-old-scientists-solar-power-breakthrough/41520/ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/blog-debun... 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-produces-no-pulse-keeps-alive-183823901.html http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/artificial-heart...
    • Moral_ 13y ago
      Interesting, I didn't realize it was debunked. Thanks!
    • DougWebb 13y ago
      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.
  • podperson 13y ago
    Aside from the fact that the solar tree was debunked (as someone else pointed out), Stanford students doing something with a high speed camera is somehow less heartwarming than a 13 y.o. kid doing it for a science project.
• VladRussian2 13y ago
  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