31–40 of 81 posts
> In most direct hits, Hu and colleagues write, the insect is carried five to 20 body lengths downward > If you want to see this for yourself, take a look at Hu’s video What? Nothing like that happens in it.
> But because our mosquito is oh-so-light, the raindrop moves on, unimpeded, and hardly any force is transferred. So if the mosquito's weight is insignificant compared to that of the heavier and denser water drop and that's what keeps it from having the force transferred, would this equally apply to hailstorms? (Where our mosquitoes are pelted by small hail balls the size of raindrops)
You don't really find mosquitoes where you're likely to find hailstorms.
> In most direct hits, Hu and colleagues write, the insect is carried five to 20 body lengths downward > If you want to see this for yourself, take a look at Hu’s video What? Nothing like that happens in it.
Are you confusing wing span with body length? In the right hand panel of the video, the insect certainly moves several body lengths, and is still moving downwards at the end of the clip.
so if mosquiotos are oblivious to rain is there some way to make artificial rain with different properties that could destroy mosquitos en masse?
http://www.local10.com/news/plane-to-spray-for-mosquitoes-ov...
Ah you mean different mechanical properties ;)
>> [Hu] and Dickerson constructed a flight arena consisting of a small acrylic cage covered with mesh to contain the mosquitoes but permit entry of water drops. The researchers used a water jet to simulate rain stream velocity while observing six mosquitoes flying into the stream. Amazingly, all the mosquitoes lived.
The researchers used simulated rain drops on six mosquitoes. There are more than six species of mosquitoes. They controlled for wind effects (which are part and parcel of rain). So they excluded horizontally travelling raindrops. My immediate reaction to the conclusion that mosquitoes can fly in rain was "Really? Not always". Here is a methodologically lacking and wholly unscientific anecdote: I have lived in Johannesburg my entire life, where mosquitoes are quite prevalent during the summer months. When it is raining heavily (it is usually quite windy as well), the local species of mosquito that feeds of humans do not present a problem as the number of airborne mosquitoes tends to zero.
I just realized how making things fun and funny can help to teach anything. The drawings and the comical tone made this seem so approachable. I wish they had a series of 1000 of such lessons I could read.
Here's his old blog on NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/ Probably not 1000, but perhaps getting on for it.
From an io9 article on the same research: >> [Hu] and Dickerson constructed a flight arena consisting of a small acrylic cage covered with mesh to contain the mosquitoes but permit entry of water drops. The researchers used a water jet to simulate rain stream velocity while observing six mosquitoes flying into the stream. Amazingly, all the mosquitoes lived. The researchers used simulated rain drops on six mosquitoes…
I live in a mediterranean zone near a huge lake and during summer mosquitos are your every night companions (specially if you're working during late night hours). But when a summer storm brews the mosquitos disappear for two or three days. Why? This has been for me a recurrent question, and the answer has been always obvious: few of them survive being hit by raindrops.
You can make 1000 theories about how our tiny vampire friends deal with raindrops, but it's pretty clear that intensive rain (>3hours) wipe out mosquitos population for several days...
The drawings in this article tend to be absurdly large, with the outcome that the document is, transferred, around 23MB, for no good reason. Sigh.