In a first for Canadian paleontology, a Cretaceous fossilized dragonfly wing, uncovered in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park ...

image: The nanopillars on the surface of a dragonfly wing (magnified 20,000 times). view more Credit: RMIT University Key points: Antibacterial texturing kills bacteria, extending food’s shelf life.

“When the average person thinks about an insect wing, they think about a dragonfly — these two pairs of really pretty, long wings,” he said. “But it’s different in different lineages.

Destin, our friend over at Smarter Every Day, has expanded our brains once again. Did you know that dragonfly wings work differently than nearly every other insect, utilizing a direct flight ...

The insect wings are composed of nerves and membranes, and their cross-section shapes consist of vertices (nerves) and line segments (membranes). The geometry of the shape appears as a connection ...

One potential explanation for this ability is that alone among flying animals, insects’ wings did not evolve from pre-existing limbs, the way those of birds and bats did, said Dr. Gonzalez-Bellido.

Dragonfly wings also feature nanopillar patterns that fend off microbes, but these are taller and skinnier, which enables them to fend of gram-positive bacteria.

“When the average person thinks about an insect wing, they think about a dragonfly – these two pairs of really pretty, long wings,” he says. “But it’s different in different lineages.

Insects took off when they evolved wings Date: January 24, 2018 Source: Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences Summary: Now buzzing and whizzing around every continent ...

A simple developmental model recapitulates complex insect wing venation patterns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018; 201721248 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1721248115 ...

Called the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, it has proved highly effective at finding new low-light galaxies — specifically seven dwarf galaxies in the field of a large spiral galaxy known as M101.