TINY HAIRS BIG FINDING

You may know that a honeybee has a segmented abdomen that is very flexible due a series of overlapping plates. Where they meet, these plates slide effortlessly over each other as the bee bends. The odd thing about this is that where they rub, they appear to create no obvious friction or damage?

Using a scanning electron microscope, Chinese researchers Jieliang Zhao and Shaoze Yan have been exploring what lubricates the overlaps. They have discovered the existence of ultra-tiny branching hairs (that look oddly like samphire, see bellow). These hairs protect and lubricate the joints to avoid damage, although how now needs to be decerned.

It is hoped that this weird and wonderful finding can now be replicated by engineers to save energy and to extend the lifetime of tiny and nano-scale devices, such as actuators and hinges. (No, I don’t know what actuators are either…).

see: https://www.snexplores.org/article/abdominal-fuzz-makes-bee-bodies-super-slippery