Bats use weighty wings to land upside down

Compared to birds and insects, bats have heavy wings for their body size. Those comparatively cumbersome flappers might seem a detriment to maneuverability, but new research shows that bats' extra wing mass makes possible ...

Weight riddle solved by Stanford bird wing test

A new instrument may help to carry out tests to optimize miniature drones, in attempts to assess their flight performance more precisely. A team from Stanford University have shown how flapping wings enable flying animals ...

Muscle power: Bats power take-off using recycled energy

Bats are uniquely able to stretch and store energy in their bicep and tricep tendons during take-off and climbing flight, giving them an extra power boost. A new study on fruitbats, to be presented at the meeting of the Society ...

Researchers build robotic bat wing (w/ video)

The strong, flapping flight of bats offers great possibilities for the design of small aircraft, among other applications. By building a robotic bat wing, Brown researchers have uncovered flight secrets of real bats: the ...

Flying fish glide as well as birds

How well do flying fish fly? This is the question that puzzled Haecheon Choi from Seoul National University, Korea. Measuring aerodynamic forces on dried darkedged-wing flying fish in a wind tunnel, Choi and Hyungmin Park ...

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