Saturday, October 4, 2014

Mosquitoes Think and Act 100 Times Faster Than You Can

Matan Shelomi informs:

Mosquitoes fly at about two kilometres per hour (1.2mph), which sounds slow, but at their size it's like you flying over a hundred times that! They are going blindingly fast for something that small.

You can't catch them for a few reasons. One, they see you coming. Their eyes are big and round and multifaceted, so they are quite capable of seeing above and behind themselves. You can't sneak up on a mosquito easily.

Second, your hand moves slower than they fly and has more distance to cover. The mosquito doesn't need to move far to get away, while your big and slow hand has to travel all the way to your head.

Lastly, the mosquito makes decisions faster than you. When you decide to hit a fly, a signal goes from your brain to your spinal cord to your arm muscles to start the hand in motion. The time it takes is a few milliseconds. But once the mosquito sees motion, a signal from its brain goes to its nerve cord to its wing muscles, and the time ends up being a fraction of a nanosecond. They think and act 100 times faster than you can. Your hand never really had a chance!

4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I saw this story elsewhere. I only came here to ask about bionic mosquitoes.

      Delete
  2. Too lazy to click on the link, but this is BS.

    Im not sure where Mantan Shelomi lives, but in MN we have plenty of mosquitoes. They are slow as hell, and easy to kill. Their real assets are stealth, numbers, and relentlessness.

    They're more active at night, and usually you don't feel the bite till they pull the needle (or whatever) out. Even in the light, they're easy to lose sight of. But, if you get a fix on one, they're helpless. IDK, maybe we have different, super slow, mosquitoes up here.

    Flies on the other hand, yeah, hard to kill.

    ReplyDelete