The Energy-Efficient Flight of the Wandering Albatross

Birds that soar can stay airborne with minimum effort. The wandering albatross is an outstanding example. With a wingspan of 11 feet (3.4 m) and weighing nearly 20 pounds (8.5 kg), this bird can fly thousands of miles using very little energy! Its secret lies in both its anatomy and its soaring technique.

During flight, an albatross engages special tendons that lock its wings in place when fully extended, thus allowing the muscles to rest. The bird’s other secret—how it soars hour after hour—involves its mastery of oceanic winds.

At sea, albatrosses climb, turn, and descend in continually repeated arcs—a maneuver that gives the birds enough momentum to compensate for that lost through drag. Only recently did scientists figure out how the birds are able to do this. Using high-resolution tracking devices and special computer software, they found that albatrosses gain the needed energy when they wheel from windward (into the wind) to leeward in the upper part of the flight curve. “The extraction of energy” is “smooth and continuous,” state the scientists. The result? The bird can soar for hours on end without a single flap of its wings!

These insights may help engineers design aerial vehicles that are more fuel efficient, perhaps even using engineless propulsion.

The Lantern of the Photuris Firefly

THE lantern, or light organ, of a particular Photuris firefly is covered with jagged scales that dramatically enhance the brightness of the light that the insect produces. * Jagged scales Consider: Researchers have found that tiny scales on the lantern surface of some fireflies form a corrugated pattern, somewhat like overlapping shingles or tiles. The scales tilt up at one end by just 3 micrometers —less than one twentieth the thickness of a human hair. Yet this tiny tilt lets the lantern shine almost 50 percent more brightly than it would if the scales formed an even surface!

An Overview of Indonesia

Land Straddling the equator between Australia and continental Asia, Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago. Most of its more than 17,500 islands feature rugged mountains and dense tropical forests. With more than 100 active volcanoes, it is also the most active volcanic region on earth.

PORTRAITS FROM THE PASTIgnaz Semmelweis

IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS may not be a household name, yet his work has benefited most modern families. Born in Buda (now Budapest), Hungary, he received his medical degree at the University of Vienna in 1844. On taking up his post as assistant to a professor at the First Maternity Clinic of Vienna’s General Hospital in 1846, Semmelweis faced an appalling reality —more than 13 percent of the women giving birth there died from a disease called childbed fever. Various theories as to the cause of this disease had been proposed, yet no one had solved the mystery. All attempts to reduce the mortality rate proved futile. Troubled by the spectacle of numerous mothers suffering a slow, agonizing death, Semmelweis determined to find the cause of the disease and prevent it.

Rielyn Co

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