[HN Gopher] Cicadas' unique urination unlocks new understanding ...
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Cicadas' unique urination unlocks new understanding of fluid
dynamics
Author : gmays
Score : 53 points
Date : 2024-03-14 17:17 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| turtleyacht wrote:
| Link to paper:
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.02359
| KineticLensman wrote:
| _Thus, larger animals expel larger amounts of liquid in a brief
| period of time with high flow rates, resulting in an almost
| constant duration across large mammals (21+-13 seconds)
| following the 'law of urination'_
|
| Awesome. I've bookmarked this to read later, perhaps tonight if
| I wake up to have a pee.
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| i didn't think that video would be so interesting. so it is a
| volume constraint? why don't other bugs do this? just hold more
| liquid? or do they face other constraints that cicadas don't
| have?
|
| Very curious.
|
| constraints meaning those that would influence evolution ofc
| hotfix_cowboy wrote:
| Warning, the video is footage of cicadas peeing. It's not a
| physics diagram or animation of the fluid dynamics involved.
| MarceColl wrote:
| Why is this a warning? I'm very confused, is it somehow
| "inappropriate"?
| iamleppert wrote:
| Some people on this site could be triggered, aroused, or
| subject to monitoring and adverse action by their employer
| by viewing such content.
| rustybolt wrote:
| I hope you are joking but at this point I don't know
| anymore.
| Kerb_ wrote:
| I mean, I wasn't offended, but I was also expecting a
| diagram and was a little surprised to just see high quality
| cicada piss footage.
| msds wrote:
| "Droplet superpropulsion in an energetically constrained
| insect"(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36376-5 ) is a
| great paper from the same authors - I came across it last year
| when I was deep in a project involving droplet manipulation on
| superhydrophobic surfaces. Nature is wild!
| dang wrote:
| [stub for offtopicness]
| warvair wrote:
| Note to self: Don't stand under trees this summer.
| noman-land wrote:
| Impressive alliteration in the headline.
| smallerfish wrote:
| > However, while cicadas are easily heard, they hide in trees,
| making them hard to observe. As such, seeing a cicada pee is an
| event.
|
| Here in the tropics, a tree that is full of cicadas will reliably
| have a steady "mist" of pee underneath its canopy, the ground
| will be damp, leaves of understory flora wet/shiny, and the air
| noticeably cooler than outside of the pee zone. Put a camera in
| the tree and I bet you can get footage easily.
|
| Also observable in the US:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/25/partly-clo...,
| https://www.thecut.com/2021/05/bad-news-cicadas-pee-a-lot.ht...
| ziffusion wrote:
| It made me very happy, for some reason, that people are
| systematically and thoroughly studying a subject as obscure as
| this (fluid dynamics of peeing in insects). I now question if
| research is happening on every single ridiculous notion that
| crosses my mind. I bet a bunch of people are actually interested
| enough in that computation that a field of study exists for it,
| that I know nothing of, and couldn't find out about if I tried.
| What all of actual fuck are people looking into?!
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| "Then, while doing fieldwork in Peru, the team got lucky: They
| saw numerous cicadas in a tree, peeing." scientists are weird
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