{"670308":{"#nid":"670308","#data":{"type":"news","title":"How Insects Evolved to Ultrafast Flight (And Back) ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMosquitoes are some of the fastest-flying insects. Flapping their wings more than 800 times a second, they achieve their speed because the muscles in their wings can flap faster than their nervous system can tell them to beat.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThis asynchronous beating comes from how the flight muscles interact with the physics of the insect\u2019s springy exoskeleton. This decoupling of neural commands and muscle contractions is common in only four distinct insect groups.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EFor years, scientists assumed these four groups evolved these ultrafast wingbeats separately, but research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) shows that they evolved from a single common ancestor. This discovery demonstrates evolution has repeatedly turned on and off this particular mode of flight. The researchers developed physics models and robotics to test how these transitions could occur.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.gatech.edu\/feature\/ultrafast-flight\u0022\u003ERead the full feature in the GT Research newsroom.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMany insects fly synchronously, matching the nervous system pulses to wing movement. But smaller insects don\u2019t have the mechanics for this and must flap their wings harder, which works only up to a certain point. That\u2019s where asynchronous flight comes in.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Many insects fly synchronously, matching the nervous system pulses to wing movement. But smaller insects don\u2019t have the mechanics for this and must flap their wings harder, which works only up to a certain point. That\u2019s where asynchronous flight comes in."}],"uid":"34528","created_gmt":"2023-10-09 19:43:55","changed_gmt":"2024-02-01 15:10:49","author":"jhunt7","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2023-10-06T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2023-10-06T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"671991":{"id":"671991","type":"image","title":"Hawkmoth flight muscles exhibit delayed stretch activation, a hallmark of asynchronous flight. ","body":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers found that hawkmoth flight muscles exhibit delayed stretch activation, a hallmark of asynchronous flight.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","created":"1696880774","gmt_created":"2023-10-09 19:46:14","changed":"1696880774","gmt_changed":"2023-10-09 19:46:14","alt":"Hawkmoth flight muscles exhibit delayed stretch activation, a hallmark of asynchronous flight. ","file":{"fid":"255166","name":"moth.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2023\/10\/09\/moth.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2023\/10\/09\/moth.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":889371,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2023\/10\/09\/moth.jpg?itok=3Tdouyfw"}}},"media_ids":["671991"],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"},{"id":"126011","name":"School of Physics"},{"id":"1316","name":"Green Buzz"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"150","name":"Physics and Physical Sciences"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"192253","name":"cos-neuro"},{"id":"170414","name":"Simon Sponberg"},{"id":"179197","name":"hawkmoths"},{"id":"3028","name":"evolution"},{"id":"4320","name":"ecology"},{"id":"667","name":"robotics"},{"id":"2030","name":"Flight"},{"id":"14946","name":"insects"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39521","name":"Robotics"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Contact\u003C\/strong\u003E: Tess Malone |\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:tess.malone@gatech.edu\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Etess.malone@gatech.edu\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jess@cos.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}