{"id":13734,"date":"2020-06-23T09:53:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T13:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=13734"},"modified":"2020-06-23T09:53:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T13:53:56","slug":"flirting-while-flying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2020\/06\/flirting-while-flying\/","title":{"rendered":"Flirting While Flying"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Mosquito\"\n

A team of mechanical engineering researchers has learned that mosquitoes flap their wings not only to stay aloft but also to generate sound and to point that buzz in the direction of a potential mate. The findings could have implications for the design of quieter drones, as well as for devising nontoxic methods of exterminating the disease-spreading insects.<\/p>\n

In a paper published in <\/a>Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, <\/em>Rajat Mittal<\/a>, a professor of mechanical engineering, and Jung-Hee Seo<\/a>, an associate research professor of mechanical engineering, explain the aerodynamics and acoustics of the mosquito mating ritual through computer modeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same wings that are producing sound are also essential for them to fly,\u201d says Mittal, an expert in computational fluid dynamics. \u201cThey somehow have to do both at the same time. And they\u2019re effective at it. That\u2019s why we have so much malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

With its high-frequency buzzing sound, a male mosquito attempts to connect with the low-frequency hum of a female. To do so, he must flap his long, slender wings at high frequencies, while also rotating them rapidly at the end of each stroke. (Yes, that annoying drill-like shrill that precedes a female\u2019s bite is also a vibrating serenade to a male mosquito\u2019s antennae.)<\/p>\n

Unlike other flying insects their size, mosquitoes have adapted their anatomy and flight physiology to solve the \u201ccomplex multifactorial problem\u201d of trying to fly and flirt at the same time, Mittal says.<\/p>\n

The team reports that both the mosquitoes\u2019 wing tones and aerodynamic forces are highly directional and are controlled simultaneously by the insects as they pursue mates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Findings by Hopkins scientists about the aerodynamic and midair communication capabilities of mosquitoes’ wings could inform the design of quieter drones and new ways of combating mosquito-borne diseases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[4994,4999,5003],"class_list":["post-13734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact","tag-mosquito","tag-aerodynamics","tag-drones","issue-summer-2020"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFlirting While Flying - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2020\/06\/flirting-while-flying\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Flirting While Flying - 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