How do insects walk on water? Detailed answer

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How do insects walk on water? Detailed answer

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How do insects walk on water?

Some insects, such as water striders, walk freely on the surface of the water. Looking closely, you can see that where their thin long legs come into contact with the surface of the water, small dents appear on it. The surface of the water behaves as if it were covered with a thin film, which, under the weight of the insect, stretches without tearing.

Physicists call this phenomenon surface tension. It is due to the attractive forces between molecules. Inside the liquid, the attractive forces between the molecules cancel each other out, and the molecules located near the surface of the liquid are affected by an uncompensated resultant force directed inward from the surface. Therefore, in order to move a molecule from the depth to the surface of the liquid, work must be done against this resulting force.

Thus, molecules on the surface of a liquid have a certain potential energy, which manifests itself as surface tension. It is due to surface tension that a drop of liquid in weightlessness takes the form that ensures the minimum surface area - the shape of a ball.

Author: Kondrashov A.P.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What is a scorpion?

The mere mention of the word "scorpion" makes us think of a dangerous poison. This is because meeting with a scorpion can be very unpleasant. Although, say, in the United States, deadly poisonous scorpions are actually found only in Arizona. These scorpions are relatives of the Durango scorpion, which lives in Mexico, whose bite kills a person in 1 hour. And over the past 35 years, about 1600 people have died from its bite.

On the territory of the former USSR, scorpions are found in the countries of Central Asia, in the Transcaucasus and in the Crimea. Scorpions are relatives of the spider. The scorpion has four pairs of legs, two strong claw-shaped pedipals, with which it usually holds prey.

Also, the scorpion has a long articulated tail, at the end of which there is a pointed sting, connected by ducts to poisonous glands. When moving, the scorpion keeps its tail curved in an arc over its body. Having caught prey with claw-shaped pedipals, the scorpion bends its tail over its head and plunges its sting into the victim. The venom either kills or paralyzes insects, spiders, and other creatures that the scorpion feeds on.

Basically, the scorpion is nocturnal, and during the day it hides in the shade, for example, under a stone, under bark or in dark corners of the house. Adult scorpions usually live and wander alone. The scorpion is a viviparous animal, and after birth, small scorpions cling to the mother's back, but she does not feed them, and after a few days the babies leave and live on their own. Scorpions live in hot climates. In size, they vary from 1 to 17 cm in length, and the largest species are found in the tropics.

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Breathalyzer headphones 27.08.2021

Scientists at Tokyo Medical and Dental University have modified a pair of commercial headphones to collect gas from the skin of a person's ears and created a portable breathalyzer.

Through the ears of a person, alcohol vapors are released in the same way as when breathing. The earpieces are attached to an ethanol vapor sensor called a "bio-sniffer". The sensor lights up if it detects ethanol fumes. The brighter the light, the greater the concentration of alcohol in a person's blood.

The use of the ears is good because they have relatively few sweat glands. It is also possible that compounds such as ethanol in the middle ear are released through the membrane into the outer ear canal.

Changes in the concentration of ethanol emitted through the ears and breath of the volunteers were fairly constant. However, the ethanol readings in the headphones peaked about 13 minutes later than the breathalyzer.

These results led the researchers to suggest that the ears are a good non-invasive way to measure blood alcohol concentration.

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