The eyes of stalk-eyed flies (Diopsidae) are positioned at the end of rigid peduncles (‘stalks’) protruding laterally from the head. Eye-stalk length varies within the family and, in some species, varies between males and females. Larger eye-stalks in males result from sexual selection for longer stalks, a trait that increases male reproductive success. In the present study, we examined whether...

Designing the wing involved literally thousands of decisions that could add up to an invaluable asset, a proprietary store of knowledge. A competitor could look at the wing, measure it even, and make a good guess about its internal structure. But a wing has as many invisible tricks built into its shape as a Savile Row suit; you would need to tear it apart and study every strand to figure out it...

In the last 30 years since their introduction into aerospace applications, composites have become increasingly used, making up as much as 50% of modern aircraft by weight. Considering this fact, it is surprising that most aircraft today are only scratching the surface of the true potential of composite technology with traditional uniaxial fibers. With the introduction of Automated Fiber Placeme...

DPP shapes up wing cel ls PP is not a savior for fly epithelial cells, according to new reports from Matthew Gibson and Norbert Perrimon (Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA) and from Jie Shen and Christian Dahmann (Max Planck Institute, Dresden, Germany). Once thought to be a survival factor in the wing imaginal disc, the DPP morphogen is now shown to regulate cell architecture. Previous experi...

This paper discusses the design optimization of a wing for supersonic transport (SST) using a multiple-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA). Three objective functions are used to minimize the drag for supersonic cruise, the drag for transonic cruise, and the bending moment at the wing root for supersonic cruise. The wing shape is defined by 66 design variables. A Euler flow code is used to evalua...

DPP shapes up wing cel ls PP is not a savior for fly epithelial cells, according to new reports from Matthew Gibson and Norbert Perrimon (Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA) and from Jie Shen and Christian Dahmann (Max Planck Institute, Dresden, Germany). Once thought to be a survival factor in the wing imaginal disc, the DPP morphogen is now shown to regulate cell architecture. Previous experi...

Recent high-resolution quantitative mapping experiments aimed at elucidating the genetics of natural variation for wing shape in fruit-flies suggest that very many genes can subtly influence the trait.

A new two-step theory is investigated for predicting the deflection and slope of an entire structure using strain measurements at discrete locations. In the first step, a measured strain is fitted using a piecewise least-squares curve fitting method together with the cubic spline technique. These fitted strains are integrated twice to obtain deflection data along the fibers. In the second step,...