Feathered Flying Machines

Feathered dinosaurs, flying dinosaurs, crown dinosaurs, and the name “Aves”

The taxon name “Aves” is currently used for several different clades, a situation that violates the fundamental nomenclatural principle that, to minimize ambiguity, each taxon name should refer to a single taxon. To clarify this situation, we explore some general issues concerning the properties of the three classes of phylogenetic definitions, including: how names can be tied to clades through...

Turbulence and Flying Machines

54 RESONANCE ⎜ November 1999 This article is intended to introduce the young reader to the relationship between flight and fluid dynamics. It begins with a somewhat detailed discussion of what makes flight possible. Following this is a description of the effect of the nature of the flow on the drag. The connection between flow stability and drag-reduction, which is a topic of current interest i...

Those magnificent men and their flying machines.

Architectural fabrication of tensile structures with flying machines

The paper presents a manufacturing process for the erection of tensile structures with flying robots. Analogies are drawn to existing methods of aerial construction and robotic fabrication in architecture. Firstly, we describe a set of aerial building instructions for the vehicles, such as an assembly of a node and the erection of a link. Secondly, we investigate combinations of these instructi...

Gene therapy for hypercholesterolemia: sweet dreams and flying machines.