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Mechanical Butterflies?
MImeKillEr writes "According to an article on BBC News, two researchers from Oxford took highspeed photographs of an Admiral butterfly in a specially-designed windtunnel to study how butterflies fly. The resulting research brings insight into small-scale flight dynamics. Although the article doesn't give an ETA on this, they expect to be able to build an aircraft with a 10cm wingspan that will be either autonomous or radio controlled. This will allow them to be used in rescue missions, cave exploration and possibly even on Mars."
I feel proud to know my taxes are once again being spent on something useful... I notice they used smoke to spot the airflow, I hope the butterflies were consulted first on breathing 2nd hand smoke or we could be in for some costly litigation in a few years time!
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
...if the MSN marketroids ever got their hands on this technology...arrgh the butterflies...they're everywhere...
Ceci n'est pas une
... two researchers took highspeed photographs of a pig in a specially-designed windtunnel to study how pigs fly. This will allow them to be used in rescue missions, cave exploration and possibly even on Mars.
We are planning to send a fleet of mechanical butterflies to mars...
Good morning slashdot!
Although the west assures the world that butterfly aircraft will be used for exploritory purposes, iraq believes that the butterflies will be used for offensive purposes...
They have responded by ordering several large nets.
Oh, right, the military! This is exactly what I thought when I read about "tiny radio controlled flying vehicles with video capture capability." I surely can't see any better uses for them. (Who said I do?!)
root@aio:~# nmap -sX -iR -p1- # Ho, ho, ho! Merry Xmas, everyone!
...a world where MSN did this, and geeks rushed to become mechanical Lepidoptera experts, running around with nets trying to catch these things and hack them (load linux, perhaps?) for their own use. I can imagine MSN suddenly thinking this was not such a bright idea...
Did anyone else, while reading "Admiral butterfly," imagine Steve Ballmer in MSN butterfly suit dancing on the stage? My God, this is not a nice thing to imagine while reading about technology, which can be a voyeurism breakthrough...
root@aio:~# nmap -sX -iR -p1- # Ho, ho, ho! Merry Xmas, everyone!
They'll just get swallowed up by some larger company.
Probably one that makes mechanized predatory birds.
I would just like to thank kramer for pointing out the low liklihood that this development would work on Mars -- revealing the ridiculous tendency that tech writers have to send *everything*, possibly, to Mars. When I release my plans for a super effcient juicer or an internet-enabled Easy-bake oven I definitely intend to put in the press release that these things would be useful on Mars.
Yeesh.
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It's just a plan for Meterological Weapons (Weapons of Meterorological Destruction).
If you get a large group of gigantic[1] butterflies flapping their wings on one side of the planet, can you imagine the havoc it would create on the other side of the planet. Hurricanes, Whirlwinds and Typhoons at the drop of a hat (or flap of a wing).
[1] Gigantic on the butterfly scale of things.