article on water striders

Row, Row, Row Your Bug
Colorful Experiments Solve Water Strider Mystery: Their Middle Legs Serve as
Oars
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 7, 2003; Page A06
Scientists have deciphered the mystery of how the tiny water strider -- a
familiar denizen of your local pond -- gets around: It uses its middle set of
legs as oars and rows along the water's surface at a rate of almost 31/2 feet
per second.
In a series of colorful experiments reported in today's issue of the journal
Nature , a team of researchers led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology
mathematician John W.M. Bush used high-speed video and blue-dyed water to track
striders as they darted past the camera, leaving vortices as neat as those made
by a sculler in a boat race.

Go here for the rest of the article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003Aug6.html
k30a
and the watergardening labradors
http://www.geocities.com/watergarden...ors/index.html

There is one picture here.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0807/p...tryBottomStory

I found this stuff on
http://news.google.com/

The neat thing about this site is that they link 17 other stories about the
same thing. Christian Science Monitor had a picture. Others might have better
ones.

Stories about Ben and J'Lo's terrible new movie and possible trouble in
paradise are listed at 154.
And proposed Gov Terminator at 715.



k30a
and the watergardening labradors
http://www.geocities.com/watergarden...ors/index.html

http://news.google.com/

Aha ! Good pointer, thanks.

That picture looks amazing. Science can be a wonderful thing.

Theo

BV wrote My smart-a$$ nephew said the other day, "If they only swim, how'd
they get
to your pond?"

Brilliant child :-)
This question is probably what started me on my collection of 60 odd reference
books.
Tell your nephew that they also fly.
Underneath the leathery surface of their backs are wings. They take off at
night.
They spot your pond by the light of the stars and the moon.
You can get aquatic insects to land on a piece of black plastic, same effect.


k30a
and the watergardening labradors
http://www.geocities.com/watergarden...ors/index.html

Theo wrote Just had a brilliant idea on how to catch herons... off to the
patents
office ;-)

Whaaaaaaaaaaat?



k30a
and the watergardening labradors
http://www.geocities.com/watergarden...ors/index.html

Well... herons find ponds in the same way (silvery shine/reflection from
stars/moon at dawn/dusk), so if I just put some black plastic with superglue
next to the pond, they are toast.

Damn, now I gave it away ;-)

Theo

Whaaaaaaaaaaat?

Theo wrote Damn, now I gave it away ;-)

And thereby your millions of dollars from
manufacturing and selling them...
drat!




k30a
and the watergardening labradors
http://www.geocities.com/watergarden...ors/index.html