Animal Flight Research Highlighted in Research Council Annual Report

In the current "Annual Report for 2010" from the Swedish Research Council (VR), our research on animal flight was selected to illustrate "basic research of the highest quality", which is an investment in the future. It's very nice to be appreciated in this way, I think, by our main funding body and we should see that as a token of achieved quality and visibility. There is also some accompanying text on VR:s website, with answers to some questions about the research. The picture on the left was taken earlier this winter, when AH was performing some critical experiments.

Rhea gets PhD

On last Friday our group member Rhea von Busse passed her oral examination for a PhD at the Humboldt University, Berlin. Dr Busses thesis is about "The trinity of energy conservation: kinematics, aerodynamics and energetics of the lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae)", including chapters on kinematcs, aerodynamics (wakes), a comparison between kinematics and wakes, and an investigation about the flight metabolic rate. This thesis is the result of the collaboration between AFL and York Winter. The discussions leading up to this collaboration were initiated some 10 years ago, when AH visited the Max Planck Institute at Seewiesen to give a talk about the wind tunnel studies on birds that were underway. Then Rhea came with the first batch of Glossophaga soricinas used for our first studies (and Rheas master thesis). We congratulate Rhea to this magnificent achievement and wish her the best of luck with her new studies on bats in the Brown University bat biology group.