Applied Science

My companion for life, who blogs as Le Conteur has a poor history of living with mosquitoes. The histamine that they release when feeding is toxic to her and she has ended up in the hospital after being bitten. I don’t have that particular problem, but I do try to stay alert and protective of My Lady and often read up on research concerning the flying phlebotomist that causes her so much grief, and I find that one of the mysteries of science has been resolved: The latest challenge to be conquered is how can mosquitoes successfully fly through the rain when a raindrop weighs 50 times more than the 'skeeter?  Now I ask you, how many times have you tossed and turned during the night, unable to sleep while pondering this deep question?

Fear not however, a team of researchers at Georgia Tech have solved this overlooked problem.

They concluded the mosquito's low body mass and strong exoskeleton render it impervious to falling raindrops which makes it possible for mosquitoes to endure low impact forces from raindrops because the mass of mosquitoes causes raindrops to lose little momentum upon impact. What was observed was that the mosquito goes with the flow and rides the water drop for as long as 20 body lengths  before using its long legs and wings to establish aerodynamic drag that rotates the mosquito off the point of contact before the raindrop impacts the ground.

A lot of people might ask what the benefit of that bit of information is and why are we wasting money on frivolous research. But the survival of mosquitoes in rain wasn’t the subject of the research. The project description states that the study was undertaken to improve the design of micro-airborne vehicles, the drones that are being increasingly used by the military and law enforcement for surveillance and other operations.

While I don’t think highly of automated animalcule keeping tabs on me or My Lady I have to say that I am impressed by the capability of micro engineering to build small things and the depth of the research that makes these incredible devices possible.