Q. What do birds, bats, fish, insects, marine mammals, and swimming mollusks called pteropods have in common?
A. Flexible propulsor systems. During steady swimming, many of these animals bend their propulsive structures in a stereotyped pattern.
A. Flexible propulsor systems. During steady swimming, many of these animals bend their propulsive structures in a stereotyped pattern.
The paper.
Lucas KN, Johnson N, Beaulieu WT, Cathcart E, Tirrell G, Colin SP, Gemmell BJ, Dabiri JO, and Costello JH. 2014. Bending rules for animal propulsion. Nat Commun. 5:3293 doi: 10.1038/ncomms4293.
The story.
After the paper was published, I was invited to give an address as an alumni speaker at Rhode Island's NSF EPSCoR Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship symposium. Amy Dunkle, communications coordinator for the program, interviewed me for an article about the project and the SURF experience. The article was published in The Current, the program's magazine, in the Spring 2014 issue (see page 21).
The lesson.
I collaborated with a fellow grad student, a couple local high school teachers, and the ComSciCon/BiteScis team (see more information here) to develop lesson plans based on the research project. The activity covers convergent evolution and proportions, and meets Next Generation Science Standards.
Lesson is available here.
Lesson is available here.
Media coverage.
*Click titles to go to articles.
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