News tagged with fins
Newly discovered sensory organ in the chin of baleen whales allows them to be world's largest hunters
Lunge feeding in rorqual whales (a group that includes blue, humpback and fin whales) is unique among mammals, but details of how it works have remained elusive. Now, scientists from the Smithsonian Institution ...
May 23, 2012 |
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Fish out of water: Gene clue to evolutionary step
Two genes controlling a tissue protein may have played a role in the key period when fish shed their fins and became limbed land-lovers, a study published by Nature on Thursday said.
Jun 24, 2010 |
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New species of ghostshark from California and Baja California
New species are not just discovered in exotic locales -- even places as urban as California still yield discoveries of new plants and animals. Academy scientists recently named a new species of chimaera, an ...
Sep 22, 2009 |
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Fossils suggest earlier land-water transition of tetrapod
New evidence gleaned from CT scans of fossils locked inside rocks may flip the order in which two kinds of four-limbed animals with backbones were known to have moved from fish to landlubber.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Apr 17, 2009 |
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Research links evolution of fins and limbs with that of gills
The genetic toolkit that animals use to build fins and limbs is the same genetic toolkit that controls the development of part of the gill skeleton in sharks, according to research to be published in Proceedings of ...
Mar 23, 2009 |
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Two new species of fish found able to regenerate a lost fin
(PhysOrg.com) -- History has shown that many invertebrates are able to regenerate lost limbs. Rare however, are animals with backbones that are able to do so, and when they do exist, they are usually amphibians ...
Feb 23, 2012 |
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German engineers mimic humpback whale to increase helicopter stability
(PhysOrg.com) -- Whale researchers have known for some time that humpback whales are able to perform feats of underwater acrobatics that belie their huge size and that some of that ability is partly due to ...
Feb 01, 2012 |
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Lungfish provides insight to life on land
A study into the muscle development of several different fish has given insights into the genetic leap that set the scene for the evolution of hind legs in terrestrial animals. This innovation gave rise to the tetrapods—four-legged ...
Oct 04, 2011 |
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Scientists can track origin of shark fins using 'zip codes' in their DNA
An international team of scientists, led by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, has used DNA to determine that groups of dusky sharks (Carcharhinus obscurus) and copper ...
Apr 27, 2011 |
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How fish swim: Imaging device shows contribution of fins
There are fish tales and then there are fish tails. And a report from Harvard researchers in the current issue of the journal Biology Letters seems to demonstrate that previous theories about how bony fish mo ...
Apr 22, 2011 |
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Harbor seals' whiskers as good at detecting fish as echolocating dolphins
When a hungry harbour seal sets off in pursuit of a fish diner, the animal has a secret weapon in its tracking arsenal: its whiskers. Detecting hydrodynamic trails in water with their sensitive whiskers, seals ...
Jun 11, 2010 |
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Killer catfish? Venomous species surprisingly common, study finds
(PhysOrg.com) -- Name all the venomous animals you can think of and you probably come up with snakes, spiders, bees, wasps and perhaps poisonous frogs. But catfish?
Dec 10, 2009 |
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Poisonous Poisson
In contrast to the exhaustive research into venom produced by snakes and spiders, venomous fish have been neglected and remain something of a mystery. Now, a study of 158 catfish species, published in the ...
Dec 04, 2009 |
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Hydrogen peroxide marshals immune system (w/Video)
When you were a kid your mom poured it on your scraped finger to stave off infection. When you got older you might have even used it to bleach your hair. Now there's another possible function for this over-the-counter colorless ...
Medicine & Health / Medical research
Jun 03, 2009 |
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Crayfish win by cheating
(PhysOrg.com) -- A study conducted at UQ's Moreton Bay Research Station has found, when it comes to crayfish, size really does matter.
Mar 25, 2009 |
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Fin
A fin is a surface used for stability and/or to produce lift and thrust or to steer while traveling in water, air, or other fluid media, (in other words, a foil (fluid mechanics)). The first use of the word was for the limbs of fish, but has been extended to include other animal limbs and man-made devices. Fins, as with other foils, operate in fluids such as water or air.
Fins are seen both in nature and in manmade iterations.
Swimming water animals such as fish and cetaceans actively use pectoral fins for maneuvering, and dorsal fins contribute stability as the animal swims, propelling and maneuvering with its tail, itself recognizable as a fin.
The fin on fixed-wing aircraft is known as a vertical stabilizer. Fins are also seen used as e.g., fletching on arrows and at the rear of some bombs, missiles, rockets, and self-propelled torpedoes. These are typically "planar" (shaped like small wings), although grid fins are sometimes used in specialized cases.
Examples of fins include:
For more information about Fin, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
