Where Humans and Animals Meet

A new solution is being tested against threat of birds getting stuck in airplane engines or picking a field clean of a farmer’s crop. John Swaddle says the “sonic net” is like an audio scarecrow and doesn’t disturb humans or harm the birds.  Swaddle was named Outstanding Faculty of 2016 by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

In the 1940s, a Swiss chemist took a close look at the burrs in his hunting dog’s fur and noticed the hook and loop phenomenon. That led to the development of Velcro, and now Brook S. Kennedy uses the same method of nature-inspired design in Macronaut, a smart phone-compatible magnifying lens he designed to help us zoom in on the wonders of natural phenomena all around.

If you’re poor in Botswana, lions and elephants aren’t cool wildlife—they’re threats to your crops, your herds, and your family. But protecting a robust wildlife population is high priority for a country whose wealthy and middle classes rely on tourism. Kathleen Alexander is working in Botswana to bridge the gap between conserving wildlife and helping impoverished communities.

Could creating an imbalance between the sexes in a mosquito population help solve the Zika problem? Zhijan Tu says it might be possible to slow the spread of Zika and other viruses like Dengue and Chikungunya by making female mosquitos scarce.