Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast.

Each episode, we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics.

I'm Susan Vallett.

What happens when you team up engineers and biologists?

You learn more about how the biomechanics of birds evolved to master flight.

That's next.

Quantum Magazine is an editorially independent online publication supported by the Simon's Foundation to enhance public understanding of science.

In a rectangular room draped in camouflage netting, four Harris's hawks took turns flying back and forth between grass-covered perches,

while scientists recorded their every biomechanical flutter. But the researchers

weren't so much interested in watching birds fly. In this experiment, their real interest was in

watching them land. In more than 1,500 flights between the perches, the four hawks nearly always

took the same path. They chose not the fastest

or the most energy efficient, but the one that allowed them to perch most safely and with the most

control. Graham Taylor, a professor of mathematical biology at the University of Oxford,

and his colleagues described it recently in nature.

The hawks flew in a U-shaped arc, rapidly flapping their wings to accelerate into a dive, then sharply

swooping upward in a glide, stretching out their wings to slow their progress before

grabbing onto the perch.

The ability of hawks to land by nearly stopping in mid-air is unmatched by their mechanical

counterparts.

Samik Bhara Charya is an assistant professor in the experimental fluid mechanics lab at the University

of Central Florida.

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