How an insect that uses its butt to flick drops of urine can keep your smartwatch dry

The glass-winged snipe is an impressive urinating insect, and could inspire more efficient designs for waterproof devices.

Saad was campaigning in his vegetable garden in Atlanta, Georgia, when he first saw this feat. The sniper forms neat round urine drops which you cut with lightning speed. Bhamla, an assistant professor of biomolecular engineering at Georgia Tech, pulled out his iPhone to take some slow motion videos.

“The more I zoomed in, the more I realized he was doing something interesting,” said Bhamla. edge.

Turns out the sniper accomplished something with his urine that hasn’t been documented in biological systems—a phenomenon called superthrust. How snipers do this is detailed in Dossier Research paper Bhamla and colleagues report this week in the journal Nature Communications. And it might just help humans figure out how to achieve a super boost too—not by peeing but with self-drying smartwatches and other devices.

In simple terms, super boost allows an elastic object to fly at a faster speed than the object it launches. The precise timing between the slippery body and the catapult gives the body a boost of energy. To understand this phenomenon, consider an Olympic diver, Bhamla explains. Skilled divers can adapt their jumps to get a maximum of two tons of energy from the springboard.

After recording video on his iPhone, Bhamla and his colleagues turned to high-speed cameras and microscopes to get a closer look at the sniper. What they found was an anal pen, aka butt flash, and that’s the key to the insect’s unique way of going about its business. The rear flashing moves backwards to make room for the incoming urine, allowing it to form droplets at the tip of the insect’s tail. At the same time, the flash compresses the droplet, allowing energy to build up surface tension.

Once the drop is the right size and shape, the flasher rotates back 15 degrees. Then that Drop flicks like a pinball. Butt flash is very fast, accelerating over 40 Gs, which is 40 times faster than the acceleration of a nimble cheetah. What’s even more amazing is that the urine flies at a higher speed than the butt flashes – a sign of overdrive.

As an added benefit, this tactic is also very energy efficient. After all, the drop moved faster than the launch of the catapult. Snipers actually urinate this way to conserve energy as they urinate Lots. Cannibals will drink and urinate up to 300 times their body weight per day because they have a very low calorie diet and lack nutrients from plant sap. And he had to spray his urine to keep the drops from sticking to him like balls of maple syrup.

What does this have to do with smartwatches? For example, the Apple Watch’s Water Lock feature can squirt water out of the device after swimming. But as far as Hamla knows, devices like this don’t yet use hyperthrus. If engineers can learn from snipers, they may be able to design a more efficient exhaust system for the device. This way, you can also keep your watch dry and charge for a longer time. The same type of technology can be used in hearing aids or anything else where you want to make them waterproof.

Bhamla and his team tested sniper tactics by bouncing water off a speaker onto the kitchen counter. They use speaker vibrations to compress tiny droplets, building up surface tension. With the right timing, they can then launch the drop at great speed.

Appropriate as it may seem, this handy trick isn’t what earned the insect its “sniper” nickname. Mostly known in the United States as a luka for farmers. It can look like a bite mark Like little bullet holes on leaves, and can transmit disease from one plant to another. Excessive urination can also cause the fruit to turn pale.

Bhamla hopes his research will inspire more people to look at insects from a new perspective. “I think it will get kids young at heart and their age to go out in their backyard and see and have fun,” he said. edge. “Very pleasant. That’s good enough for me.”