Congratulations to Professor Rajat Mittal, Emily Palmer (B.S., MechE ’18), and their team members, whose research on the aerodynamic nature of cricket leaps was published in a New York Times article! . Click here to review the piece in its entirety.
Excerpt:
Rajat Mittal, a mechanical engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, first became interested in spider crickets, sometimes called camel crickets, as a homeowner.
The crickets are a highly successful invasive species, and one of the places they invaded was Dr. Mittal’s basement.
He was trying to get rid of them, but, because he studies flight and swimming and other movements, he couldn’t help but notice how well they jumped — up to about 60 body-lengths — compared with American crickets. “The thing that really got my attention,” he said, “is that they seemed to mostly land on their feet.”
He brought them into his laboratory and not only figured out what they do, but produced some enchanting slow-motion video of their movements in the air.