Robby Schetlick
AP Bio
Mr. Ippolito
October 3 2017
Lund University. "New study changes our view on flying insects." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 September 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170929114910.htm>.
“New study changes our view on flying insects”
At the tail end of last september, Lund University completed its study on insects and provided materials for a ScienceDaily article called “New study changes our view on flying insects.” The article is mainly about the findings of the study, which was lead by Biologist Kajsa Warfvinge. She and her colleagues observed tobacco moths — also known as Manduca sexta — in order to prove that there exists an optimal speed for insects as they fly. Some insects, such as bees, expend the same amount of energy hovering in place as they do flying; this became the assumption for all flying insects. However, birds have been proven to display more efficiency at a moderate speed which lead to Kajsa Warfvinge’s decision to investigate. She and her team used a wind tunnel apparatus with tomographic PIV sensors. These special sensors record the movement of the air in three dimensions as the moth flaps its wings. The vortex formed is recorded along with the strength detected to measure the amount of kinetic energy added by the moth at different speeds. The study found that the moths do in fact follow the classic aviation theory: flying at low speeds is inefficient because of the lack of lift, and flying at high speeds is inefficient because of air resistance. This produces a “U-shaped” graph for moths and birds (who also obey classic aviation theory). This graph shows that the moths are most energy efficient at 2-3 meters per second, varying depending on the distance traveled.
The findings of this study will be useful in very near future in a potential variety of concentrations. Kajsa said, “I imagine that our results could be used indirectly to predict how well different species respond to changing temperatures in view of global warming. By knowing how much energy is needed to fly at different speeds, we can calculate how far and fast the animals can travel given a certain amount of energy.”It is inevitable that climate change is becoming more and more of a problem. As animal habitats change, it will be important for us to be able to determine how and where insects will relocate, to keep track of things such as diseases they may carry and to predict their effect on the indigenous species. Another example of the useage of the finding of this study could be in the field of biomimicry, or the method to copying natural mechanisms used by animals and plants to make efficient technology. If we ever wanted to make technology that mimics an insect, it will be useful to keep in mind the restrictions on the insect’s optimal flight speed if we want the machine to be efficient.
The article had the minimum you could expect from a classic Sciencedaily article. The article was generally interesting and many people are already curious about the flight of insects. The author sticks to basic vocabulary, which was a wise decision because the website’s target audience is very generic and it wanted to appeal to all audiences and not just a small specific audience. When the article does reference unusual words or terms, it makes sure to explain them in the sentence before or after. The article is brief, which is good because the average viewer has limited time and won't spend more than 5-10 minutes, making short length very important. The article is generally well rounded and has all of the aspects of a perfect article, just in slightly lower quality. The biggest issue I had with the article was that there was no data or evidence other than a picture at the top. The results were provided by Lund university who may have wanted to restrict who can see their data, but the description of the study didn’t feel like enough evidence. If they want to improve the article, they could add some number calculations to prove their points, as the human brain memorizes numbers easier. The article would have also benefitted from some more paragraphs explaining the usefulness of the data, because other than speculation of the future, it seemingly has no purpose in the present than to expand our scientific knowledge base.
Peyton Kinon
ReplyDeleteAP Biology
Current Event Comment
10/3/17
Citation: Lund University. "New study changes our view on flying insects." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 September 2017. .
Hyperlink: .
Robby did a good job at summarizing his article. He described the experiment in great detail and made it easy to understand. He also described the results of the experiment well. By saying that the results made a “U-shaped graph” really helped me visualize the fact that there is an ideal speed for insect and animal flight. He also did a good job describing why and why not he liked the article. He says that he liked the obvious details, like the material, but he also describes that he liked more intricate details like word choice, which he said was simple and easy to understand, and length, which he said was a nice length for a casual reader and isn’t too long for it to become boring. Robby did a good job with the analysis of the article, as well. He describes why the experiment will be important by relating it to insect movement due to climate change, which is a very real problem in this day and age. He also describes a way in which this discovery could impact machinery by relating the findings to the field of biomimicry and creating insect-like robots.
Some of Robby’s sentences come across as a little confusing. For example, in his last paragraph, the first sentence says, “The article had the minimum you could expect from a classic Sciencedaily article.” I was a little confused at whether this was a positive aspect of the article or a negative aspect. He follows this sentence by listing positive things about the article, so I’m not so sure whether it’s positive or negative. If this was a negative comment, he could have moved it to the part in the paragraph where he lists the things that he didn’t like about the article. Some of Robby’s sentences are a little run on which makes them hard to understand and redundant. For example, in his last paragraph, he says “The article is brief, which is good because the average viewer has limited time and won't spend more than 5-10 minutes, making short length very important.” He states the fact that the article has a good length twice, which is a little redundant. Also, the sentence would have sounded batter and been less redundant if he split it up into two sentences. I did also find a spelling mistake in his final paragraph, but it is very minor and can be fixed through proofreading.
This article taught me a lot about why the optimal flight speed of insects and birds is important. I never even thought about the fact that there was an optimal flight speed and that it could possibly be used for scientific reasons. Also, learning that climate change is affecting the lives of insects is something I’ve never thought of before, for some reason. I will try to change my recycling habits so that I recycle more in an effort to reduce my carbon footprint. I chose this article to comment on because it sounded interesting to read about something I had never thought of before and I was right.
Cindy Kwok
ReplyDeleteCurrent Events
Lund University. "New study changes our view on flying insects." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily,
29 September 2017. .
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170929114910.htm
I read Robby’s review on the article “New study changes our view on flying insects”. One thing that he did well was summarizing every main point in the article. He discussed the previous theories about energy expenditure during flights for hummingbirds and how the new study helped to prove that in insects as well. Later, he talked about the type of animals that the scientists tested on (tobacco moths), and did well on describing the experiment. Another area that Robby did good on was explaining the relevance of the study. When I first looked at the article, nothing really stood out to me about the experiment so I thought it was interesting how he not only included the scientist’s thoughts on how the experiment would help, but included his own ideas on biomimicry. Lastly, I thought he was solid all around in his critique of the article. He not only mentioned where the article could have improved regarding the experiment, but also mentioned things such as length and appeal.
One thing I think the article itself could have improved on was explaining if there is a difference between birds and insects regarding the consumption of energy when they fly. One of the main reasons the experiment was performed was to see the difference in energy between insects as they had noticed in birds originally. Was the experiment done because of difference in the body / wing structure of birds vs. insects? In summary, the article could have given more background into the experiment. Another area that needed work was with proving statistics, which Robby had also mentioned in his critique. Although the article summarized the experiment well, it failed to include any data from the experiment, the number of trials, or if they tested the experiment on any other insects (or was it just the tobacco moth). These points could have made the article much more in depth and enhanced our understanding of the experiment.
Overall, I thought the article was interesting. The thing that shocked me most was how this experiment could be of relevance in the world. I would never have thought about using the experiment to see how animals could behave or survive climate change which is becoming a big problem. I also especially would never have connected the topic to biomimicry, which was nice on Robby’s part.