thekidshouldseethis:

Slow motion ladybugs unfolding their wings out from under their spotted Elytra (the colorful shell/hard case wings), recorded by Rainer Bergomaz of PCO Imaging.

From the archives: a ladybug swarm + more slow motion.

I’ve had the proverbial “lucky ladybug” land on me a number of times, always to fly off again within a few seconds. But I’ll admit, until now it never occurred to me how strange and intricate a process it is for them to unsheath their wings from beneath that spotted shell. 

It’s like a tiny, beautiful Transformer, designed by nature, rollin’ out. 

The Science of the Wet Dog Shake

Animals like dogs are famous for jumping right out of the water, running over to their owner, and showering them with a spray of furry mist as they whip their hair dry. A great many mammals exhibit this behavior, from pigs to cats to mice to goats. Now someone has uncovered the science behind it.

Each animal uses a speed of shaking that balances their mass and size with how much extra skin they have to shake around, effectively maximizing the drying process while minimizing energy spent.

Either way, it goes quite well with The Blue Danube!

More on this research at Nature News.

Source: nature.com

thekidshouldseethis:

A downward lightning negative ground flash captured at 7,207 images per second. A negative stepped leader emerges from the cloud and connects with the ground forming a return stroke.

From ZT Research, who is “trying to figure out how lightning works.”

via Stellar.

ZAP.

Visit the ZT Research video page to see even more lightning captures, including some crazy upward stuff. Until you watch it at this slow speed, you don’t appreciate the random, yet stable path that the ionized gas takes from cloud to ground. Amazing.