![]() ![]() All sorts of useful traits but not a single instance of functional wings. Humans already have millions of years of evolutionary history that has given us our nimble fingers, mostly hairless bodies, and giant brains - to name a few things. His research involves understanding and changing the underlying genetic and physiological factors to create specific body parts and anatomical systems. In an interview with The Varsity, Douglas Blackiston, a developmental biologist at Tufts University, shared his research on tissue plasticity and the development of wings. Surprise, surprise! Unlike those of birds or bats, our bodies are heavy, our muscles are weak, and probably most significant of all, we don’t have wings. It might have something to do with the fact that we humans just aren’t designed to fly. Why can’t I flap my wings open and go over to my nearest McDonald’s fly-through? Why are we chained to the Earth when we so long to fly? So why, even after thousands of years of innovation and research, are we still forced to sit in our cars and complain about the traffic instead of just flying above the road? Although we have our airplanes and our jets, flying in a big metal tube and peering through those tiny oval windows doesn’t quite fulfil that primal urge to feel the wind in our wings. For us, the sky is forbidden, unconquered. Just looking at an eagle gliding through the air gives us land-dwellers a pang of jealousy. Leonardo da Vinci spent days designing flying machines that would mimic birds and let humans take to the skies. Judeo-Christian texts describe angels that could fly up to the heavens. The Greeks tell the myth of Icarus who used wings made of wax and feathers to escape his confinement. Individual flight has long captured people’s imaginations. You strain your back muscles and flap your wings, rising a little higher. You’re swimming through the air, in control, flowing with the wind instead of just being thrown against it. The unfurled appendages catch the wind, tug you upwards, and now you’re gliding. You’re going faster and faster, the ground is getting closer and closer, and just as you’re about to crash into the concrete pavement, you push your shoulder blades together, forcing your wings to flap open. Gut clenched, arms flailing, you shiver as the adrenaline takes over and your body starts tingling. You see the sky, then the building, and then the sky again as you tumble through the air, plummeting towards the ground at 200 kilometres an hour. You open your mouth to scream but the wind muffles your voice. This creates lift and pushes birds up in the sky.Īirfoils are the human engineered version of bird wings.Imagine you’ve stepped off the top of an 80-storey skyscraper. Why are birds' wings covered in feathers? They catch the air and force it downward when they flap. The shape of their body helps reduce air resistance when flying, and their muscles are extremely powerful compared to their body.īird lungs are also designed so that when birds breathe they absorb a lot of oxygen, which is needed to keep the muscles working over long periods of time. Air sacs inside their bodies make birds lighter, which enables smoother motion through air. Their light frame and hollow bones make it easier to counteract gravity. It's not only wings that allow birds to fly. We cannot create enough lift to overcome the force of gravity (or our weight). Humans are not physically designed to fly. The Earth pulls everything down towards its centre, this pull is called the force of gravity.
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