Maia Chandler, 2024 AAPT/SPS Science Outreach Catalyst Kit (SOCK) Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Swarthmore College

My name is Maia Chandler and I am the AAPT/SOCK Intern for Summer 2024. I am a rising senior at Swarthmore College pursuing a major in biophysics and a minor in educational studies. Outside of class, I run circus club, am a teaching assistant for physics classes, and am helping build my school’s natural history collections. I believe people are inherently fascinated by science and that childlike wonder and curiosity should be nurtured. In my work, I hope to convey that science matters because it teaches us about the connections between ourselves, and the living and nonliving world around us and beyond us. As one of my friends says, the strings of everybody’s gravity touch each other always.

I hope to pursue a graduate degree and a career in science communication and am very excited to dive into science outreach and public education this summer. I want to make scientific research appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds, and assure young students that there is a place for them in these fields.

Internship

Host: Society of Physics Students

Internship Blog

Week 1: The Blue Dasher

Dragonflies, order Odonata, live on every continent except for Antarctica. There are around 3000 species of this predatory insect, characterised by their huge compound eyes, two narrow pairs of intricately veined wings, and elongated, sometimes iridescent bodies. Dragonflies can fly backwards, right themselves when falling (even when unconscious), control each wing individually, and have near 360-degree vision. You may ask, Maia, this is a physics internship. Why are you harping on about dragonflies?

Dragonflies are full of physics. All kinds of equations go into understanding their different modes of flying–hovering, gliding, and taking off. The flight patterns and efficiency of dragonflies are an inspiration for engineering flight technologies. Dragonflies come in a remarkable range of colours, some hues produced from light scattering and layers of cuticle that produce thin-film interference. One of my favourite damselflies, Neurobasis chinensis, the Green Metalwing, has iridescent emerald green hindwings. Varying fluid velocities in the veins within these wings mean different levels of flexibility in the base and the tips. Depending on whether they are perching or gliding species and the kind of habitat they live in (do they need to manoeuvre around dense vegetation?), species have different wing stiffnesses. This is to say that as the SOCK intern, I hope to centre this box of outreach materials around the wonders of the dragonfly.

As nymphs, dragonflies live beneath the water’s surface, catching prey such as mosquito larvae and tadpoles. When this naiad is ready to become an adult, they swim to the surface and climb onto a plant to moult. It feels appropriate that dragonflies have been used to symbolise transformation and imminent change. This was indeed a week of change.

Over the weekend, my little brother graduated high school. Immediately after, on Monday, my family packed into the car and drove down from New York City to Washington D.C., stopping to visit with my great aunt. Did you know that the most commonly spotted dragonfly (94,695 iNaturalist observations) in Washington DC is the Blue Dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis? ‘Longipennis’ means long wings. After settling in, a group of us interns gathered in someone’s room to play Head Trip and Mafia (I am extraordinarily bad at Mafia).

Tuesday morning, we gathered in the lobby of our dorm hall to commute to the American Centre of Physics (ACP) together, our steady tour guides Brynn and Jaden leading the way. During orientation, we were introduced to a great many people. Orientation was long and filled with PowerPoints, but the consistent message that everyone involved in this internship program cared deeply about the work and the students made everything better. The most entertaining part of the day’s programming was the marshmallow-spaghetti tower competition. While Brynn, Evan and I may not have won, I’m confident we had the best tower.

On Wednesday, I had IT orientation (conducted from my lovely Shenkman living room), and a meeting with my SOCK mentor, Mikayla (conducted from the ACP office). I was very excited to discuss the goals of this internship and what steps we would take to ensure those goals are met. I spent much of the day reading about and thinking about dragonflies, and brainstorming ideas for the SOCK. After the workday, my college friend Sophia and I got a yummy Indian food dinner and walked a large circle around the GW campus (also sweet treats, always sweet treats). That night, we had the riveting experience of a 3 am fire alarm (Voices speak from the ceiling? It is terrifying).

Thursday was centred around Astro on the Mall–an outreach event run by Hofstra University on the National Mall. As the SOCK intern, it is my job to organise materials for the SPS booth and make sure that every intern is ready for it. I spent the day compiling demo overviews from previous years’ materials and designing new table cards to summarise each activity.

I spent all week very excited for Friday, as Dr Jack Hehn had given me a ticket to a National Orchestral Institute concert at the National Museum of American History. After some work in the morning and a lunchtime walk along the mall, Amanda and I headed to the museum for the concert. It ended up being a very small event hidden in the Hall of Music History. The quartets were lovely and the musicians were super talented. As we returned to the dorm, we ran into several other SPS interns and joined them for an exhibit titled Good Fortunes at the Heurich House Museum.

The weekend was full of markets! On Saturday, Sophia and I went to the flea market at the Eastern market (which turned out to also be a farmers market). Acquisitions were: two boxes of strawberries (eaten on the spot), four peaches, and a loaf of sourdough. We spent the afternoon at the botanical gardens (Pachydiplax longipennis spotted!) before returning to Shenkman for dinner and peaches with vanilla ice cream. Sunday was yet another market day (Dupont Circle and Georgetown flea). I made a strawberry-rhubarb compote (thank you, farmers market), which went perfectly with more vanilla ice cream.

Images:

Farmer’s markets sightings; view on a walk; National Orchestral Institute concert; Eastern market fabrics; Pachydiplax longipennis; strawberries for compote

Week 2: The Wandering Glider

Dragonflies are some of the world’s best fliers. Pantala flavescens, also known as the Wandering Glider or Globe Skimmer take part in a multigenerational migration every year. They make an 18,000 km (11,200 miles) journey, in which individual dragonflies fly around 6,000 km (3,730 miles). As a result, they might be some of the most widespread dragonflies, with populations on every continent except for Antarctica. The Wandering Glider is about 4.5 cm long, with wingspans of 8 cm. How do insects so small fly so far? Dragonfly wings and flight dynamics are a wonder and a great biomechanical inspiration.

Several characteristics of dragonfly wings enable efficient flight. One of these is how they beat their wings. Dragonflies have a pair of forewings and a pair of hindwings and can modify the phase those wings beat at. The wings can beat together (in-phase) or out-of-phase, where a pair of wings point up and a pair of wings point down. Studies have shown that in-phase flapping creates lots of force, which is best for takeoff or quick, demanding manoeuvres. Out-of-phase flapping is for steady flight and hovering. This mechanism has been termed ‘counter-flapping’. When the forewings flap, they create a leading-edge vortex that the hindwing anticipates and catches. This means that the hindwing captures the energy that is ‘wasted’ by the forewing, decreasing the energy the dragonfly uses and increasing its lift.

The incredible flight dynamics of dragonflies is one of the concepts I have been trying to turn into a demo for this year’s SOCK. This week, I wrote a demo on electromagnetic waves and how dragonflies can see UV light and a demo on wave phases. I also went to the AIP Maryland office and got to search through the basement of Treasures for games and materials I could use for the SOCK. My goody bag of craft supplies was fantastic for the paper aeroplanes and straw wave I made at ACP-DC. On Thursday, I met with my high school physics teacher and some of his current colleagues. I pitched all my demo ideas to them and got lots of advice on how to make demos consistent, how to implement my ideas, how to integrate demos with the arts, and how to create write-ups that are appropriate for different age groups. I’m glad I got to discuss demo ideas with physics teachers early on in the SOCK-building process–it was super helpful for my thought process!

Aside from my SOCK work, this was an exciting week for internship programming. On Wednesday, we got to attend a Trimble lecture with John Mather and Mark Clampin on the development of space telescopes and future searches for life outside the solar system. Thursday, we went on a dinner cruise down the Potomac. I’ve gotten to speak with lots of incredible scientists and communicators about their work (and also about dragonflies), which has been very exciting!

This weekend, I went to the zoo with a few other interns. My favourite part was the bird exhibit (Jenna’s least favourite). They had little cards with identifications of all the bird species, and I had a really fun time trying to find all of them (Where’s Waldo but better because of birds). We took lots of silly pictures of the animals. While there was no insect exhibit at the zoo (sad) I did spot a dragonfly nymph exoskeleton in the pond. Happy birthday, dragonfly!

Week 3: The Elfin Skimmer

As a child, I would always pick flight as my hypothetical superpower. Quite unfortunately, that is not what the human body is built for. My dreams may have come true, however, if I had been born an insect (though maybe this would have been unpleasant in a variety of other ways).

Insect flight varies drastically. Some beetles and bees look like they are fumbling along like they might fall out of the air any minute. Dragonflies, on the other hand, appear out of magic and zip and spin so fast your eyes can’t keep track of them.

In principle, flight is a balance of four forces: lift, thrust, weight, and drag. Enough lift to balance weight, enough thrust to balance drag, and you’re hovering! In practice, this is much more difficult. Insect flight is often put into two categories, differentiated by how their muscles cause their wings to flap.

Most insects have indirect flight muscles, where muscles are attached to the walls of the thorax (the large middle section of an insect). There are vertical muscles and longitudinal muscles. When they contract, they change the shape of the thorax and cause the wings to move. Vertical muscles pulling on the roof of the thorax raise the wings. Longitudinal muscles pulling the sides of the thorax cause the wings to lower.

Dragonflies (also damselflies and mayflies) have direct flight muscles, muscles that act directly on the wings. Each wing is connected to two muscles. The ‘elevator muscles’ closer to the base of the wing contract (or shorten) to raise it. The second muscle, the depressor muscle, further from the base of the wing contracts to pull the wing back down. This allows them to move each wing independently, which gives them lots of control over how fast they can change speed and direction.

This week, I was (again) working on demos about dragonfly flight. On Wednesday and Thursday, I enlisted the help of interns at the ACP office to figure out how to make a model of dragonfly direct flight muscles. While this is proving a bit more difficult than I originally thought, we have a couple of prototypes that may prove fruitful. This week, I also designed the SPS summer intern shirt (all these cows are physicists) and wrote a demo on thin-film interference (centred around dragonfly colouration, maybe I’ll talk about that next week). As the concepts in my demos are becoming more complicated, they are taking a little longer to write. Here’s to hoping I get all of them done! I’ve started to have demo days in preparation for next Saturday’s Astronomy on the National Mall. All of Friday, the other interns dropped by the ACP office I have claimed to test the demos they’ll run. Boomwhackers are a surprisingly big hit with college students (Reidyn wanted to play Crazy Train).

As for not-work activities this week: Monday, I climbed a very good tree. On Tuesday, I made too many scallion pancakes, and made peach sauce (I traded Charles food for hand-whipping whipped cream (it was a good deal)). On Wednesday, Charles and I went to our first-ever spin class (it was movie music-themed and also exhausting). Next week we’re making other interns go with us. Thursday, I stopped at the National Portrait Gallery. On Friday, several of us went to Jazz in the Garden (good music, wet grass). Saturday, Kai, Sonja, Jaden, Charles, Kaden, Evan and I set our intentions on a food festival near the Smithsonian but promptly turned around when we found out there was an entry fee. Instead, we spent the afternoon searching through the National Gallery for art that looked like each other (great success with Kai and Charles lookalikes), and animals that Did Not look like animals (Sonja and I were horrified (some painters did not know what dogs looked like)). Afterwards, I made my way to Maryland to meet Amanda, Jenna, Brad Conrad, and Jack Hehn for the National Orchestral Institute’s Symphonie Fantastique concert. Amanda and I were thoroughly shocked at the Symphonie lore (highly recommend reading it, Berlioz was a little insane). On Sunday, I went to Maryland (the other side) to spend some time with my great aunt and uncle and cousins. We had lunch, talked about books, and watched a movie (my cousins are so cool). I’m super grateful I have family in the area, and it was wonderful to hang out with them all day. All in all, fantastic week!

This week’s dragonfly is Nannothemis bella, the Elfin Skimmer. It is itty bitty (North America’s smallest!), should be listed as endangered in all parts of its range (I’m working on it), and is one of my favourite dragonflies.

Week 4: The Clearspot Bluewing

Zenithoptera lanei, the Clearspot bluewing, is perhaps one of the most beautiful dragonflies. Found in Central America and northern South America, they fly through grassy marshes or clearings, spotted by bright flashes of their shimmering, blue-as-sky wings. These dragonflies rest with their wings folded, metallic blue hidden from the world. When male bluewings fight over territory, they will spread their wings when their rivals approach, displaying the blue of their inner wing.

Like the Morpho butterfly, the bright blue feathers of a Kingfisher, the shimmering green of a beetle’s chitin, and peacock feathers, the blue of Zenithoptera lanei wings is structural colouration. Structural colouration is colour from small structures that interfere with visible light. In structural colouration, only the wavelengths you see are reflected, and while the others are transmitted through the medium. This is in contrast to pigment colour. Pigments absorb certain wavelengths of light except the one you see. Structural colours are much more resistant to fading.

Clearspot bluewings UV-bluish colouration is called pruinosity. This is a common structural colouration in dragonflies that reflects ultraviolet light that comes from wax filaments and plate-like crystals covering the body and wings. Some scientists suggest that this wing UV reflection has a role in sexual and age recognition.

Why all this discussion on dragonfly colouration? Well, I think it’s cool. Also, this week I finished my demo on thin-film interference, which (obviously) is centred around the structural colouration of dragonflies. Also on Monday, I met with Dr Gary White (GWU professor and editor of The Physics Teacher), who kindly lent us his fabric of spacetime setup for Astronomy on the Mall. On Tuesday, I tested a demo on vortices (related to how insects fly!).

We had Wednesday off for Juneteenth, so Piper, Kai and I set off at 8 in the morning for a 7-mile hike at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. Not only was it gorgeous, but the trail was covered in all kinds of berries. 99% of compound berries in the Northeast are edible, so I spent the whole hike snacking on blackberries and wineberries (and blueberries)! I made a specific effort to eat as many wineberries as I could as they are an invasive species (EAT THEM). We then drove back to Shenkman and Kai and I hosted a potluck where we celebrated Charles’ birthday (I made dumplings and fried mantou), which was delicious and also exhausting. Thursday, I made too much fried rice, finished up my vortex demo, and received some logistical changes for Astronomy on the Mall. On Friday, I realised I had a captive audience of cousins to test my demos on, so I sent out a mass request for critiques.

Saturday was BarbequeFest and also Astronomy on the Mall day! This was big for me, as this is the event I had to organise for all the interns for this summer. Because of the heatwave this weekend, we got moved into the Arts and Industries Building (which has been closed for a while). We got our tables set up pretty quickly and began our mission to make physics and astronomy seem super cool and awesome to the public. Given that there was consistently a crowd around our 8-foot fabric of spacetime demo, I think we might have succeeded. I spoke to a lot of adults with little astronomy knowledge and got lots of compliments on my explanations (someone asked if they could leave me a Yelp review?), which felt fantastic and made me feel like I’m perhaps not too bad at science communication. Sunday, I made turon (banana spring rolls) to bring to my cousins, and then spent the day with them and my great-aunt. Good stuff!

Week 5: Meganeura monyi

Welcome to week five! I’ve talked about how dragonfly’s flight muscles, how they beat their wings and how they produce their incredible colours. Is that enough talking about dragonflies? Never. As you might remember from week one, the veins of a dragonfly’s wings impact their flexibility. Honestly, dragonfly wing patterning might be one of my top five things ever.

Every part of a dragonfly’s wing has a purpose. Every part of it is also beautiful. If you’ve taken a good close look at a dragonfly wing, you might have noticed that it’s crinkly. It has corrugations, or ridges and grooves, that might help with dragonfly aerodynamics. It’s awesome! For me, one of the most interesting things about a dragonfly’s wing is how it changes from the wing base to the wing tip. The thickness of the vein and the membrane is thicker near the base, where the wing is connected to the body, and thinner near the tip. This allows the wing to withstand multiple forces during flight, which makes it more stable. Perhaps even more fascinating is that the size of the vein cavity decreases from the base to the tip. There is more space for body fluid to flow near the body than at the wing tip. This means that the flow velocity is different in different parts of the wing–the fluid flow velocity is higher at the wing base than at the wing tip.

And that’s not where the wonders of the dragonfly wing end! There is nothing I love more than patterns that reach farther than you ever thought they could. The venation in dragonfly wings is a pattern we call the Voronoi tessellation. Voronoi tessellations are a geometric structure that divides a space into chunks based on distance from a set of points called ‘seeds’. Every chunk is an area closer to one specific seed than any other.This is a pattern we see in leaves, garlic cloves, and giraffe print. We also used it to calculate the rainfall of an area, to model muscular tissue, and to find out which old statue some severed statue heads belong to.

Scientists at Brookhaven National Lab have also found the golden angle (a full circle multiplied by the golden ratio to give ~137.5˚) in dragonfly wings. These angles are concentrated in parts of the wing that are thin, but need to be strong and light–the bottom edges and tips of the wings. One perfect angle constant from the ittiest bittiest to the biggest. Fiddleheads and pine cones and seed heads and animal flight patterns, cauliflowers and nautilus shells and galaxies. And dragonflies. All moving in the same spiral. It makes me feel more connected to the world. Yes, I am one person, but there are spirals inside of me that fill up my fingers and toes and organs and bones.

While I love, love, love wing venation. It’s not actually what I worked on this week. Instead, I wrote a demo on the forces involved in flight and how dragonflies glide. I also did lots of AAPT work, creating schedules for the summer meeting and gathering information on STEM schools and how to build professional learning communities. On Wednesday, I met with Karin from AIP News and Media for some tips and tricks on how to film videos for the demos. I’ve never done much video editing, so it’ll be a learning curve! We are also moving along in the actual creation of the SOCK. Materials are being budgeted and Mikayla and I will soon be packing them up!

I started off the fun and delightful things this week by making a quick trip to the Museum of Natural History on Monday afternoon. I heart the insect zoo (obviously) and the Carboniferous dragonfly model is fantastic (I think it could be bigger though). We played Quiplash at Jaden’s in the evening (hilarious, but I’m not very good at it). Tuesday morning Charles and I went to the gym (thank you Charles for teaching me about the gym). Unfortunately, on Wednesday and Thursday, I was home sick, so no fun social activities for this guy. On Friday afternoon, I took the train up to New York to visit my girlfriend. We went to a show (The Welkin, with a friend’s sister and Sandra Oh), ate some good food, went on a bookstore walk, and did some people-watching at NYC Pride! All in all, pretty solid week. Wish I had dreamt about dragonflies more.

Anyways, this week’s dragonfly is Meganeura monyi. It’s not really a dragonfly, but it is a Carboniferous fossil related to the dragonfly. It has no common name, so call it whatever you think is best (or coolest). It had a wingspan of 65–75 cm (2.13–2.46 ft). The holotype, or the specimen used to describe the species, is in the National Museum of Natural History, in Paris.

Week 6: The Flame Skimmer

This is a blog post, so I am here to push the dragonfly agenda, once again. They are, after all, the love of my life. However, I’ll introduce this week with bees. The Bee Movie begins with lies about bees (it also makes no sense in almost every single way, but that’s not what we’re here for). They say that according to the laws of aviation, bees should not be able to fly. We have all seen bees. We all know this is false. So then–how do bees fly?

Flying insects don’t follow the same aerodynamic laws as airplanes. Many years ago, some researchers (in the paper Flow visualisation and unsteady aerodynamics in the flight of the hawkmoth, Manduca sexta) visualised how air moved around insects. They put moths in a wind tunnel and filled it with smoke to observe how the moths’ wings changed the flow of the air around them. This was fluid dynamics research, looking at how liquids and gases move and interact with things. They discovered something we now call leading-edge vortices.

The airflow on top of an insect wing does not flow smoothly around it like it would around the wing of an airplane. Instead, we see that the air moves into a circle on top of the wing. The air inside this circle rotates, creating a vortex. Specifically, this is a leading-edge vortex. In the middle of the vortex, airflow is rotating very fast, creating an area of low pressure at the top of the wing. The area under the wing is comparatively high-pressure. This means the pressure on the lower surface of the wing pushes up harder than the pressure on the upper surface pushes down. This imbalance of forces lifts off the wing, allowing the insect to fly.

In dragonflies, we don’t just see fluid dynamics in studying how oscillating wings interact with the surrounding air, but also because of how the wings interact with each other. Because dragonflies have four wings, airflow over the back wings is influenced by how the front wings move the air around them. This is especially influenced by the phase difference in the flapping of the wings – whether or not they beat up and down in-phase or out-of-phase. The current theory is that the back wings expect the leading edge vortex the front wings create. When the front wings flap, they leave that vortex or wake, behind in the air. When the front and back wings are out-of-phase, the back wings rotate in a certain way to intersect and capture the wake. This happens most efficiently at a phase difference of 90 degrees. This phenomenon, called ‘wake capture’ or ‘wing–wake interaction’, lets the back wings capture the wasted energy from the front wings and gives the insect extra lift. This allows dragonflies to have extremely efficient flight. However, the wings need to be at that correct phase difference for it to occur. We know about phase differences in dragonfly wings! I wrote all about them in week 2.

Once again, vortices were not what I worked on this week. On Monday, I took the train back from New York and did some prep work for AAPT. I finished up the research on STEM schools and worked on my presentation for the AAPT Summer Meeting. On Tuesday, I went to ACP DC and wrote this year’s SPS Physics Jeopardy. Many thanks to Sonja for some fantastic categories. I think my favourites are ‘First Names of People There are Equations Named After’ (Who even is Coulomb?), ‘Fun Facts About Physicists Unrelated to Physics’ (Do you know about Einstein’s opinions on clothing?) and ‘Name that Unit!’ (I give you SI base units, you tell me what fun unit it is). Also, we went to trivia! Wednesday, I experienced trials and tribulations. The University of Maryland is conducting construction from hell near ACP at College Park. I did not know this. As a result, I walked down my regular path to the office, only to have to turn around and find another way in. I got lost, sweat so very much, and ranted about pedestrian-unfriendly roads to my family (who I called on my walk). I eventually reached the office, where Mikayla and I gathered basement materials for the SOCK and then ordered the rest of our items. Rianna (much love) gave me a ride to the station on the way home.

Very minimal work and very many other things got done on Thursday and Friday. Thursday morning, Kai and I went to a bakery and sampled a variety of delicious treats (curry butternut squash tart is 10/10). We took a brief indoor break at Shenkman and then headed to Jaden’s frat for a barbeque. We ate hot dogs, ate some more hot dogs, and counted how many people walking past were wearing matching outfits with Jenna. After another quick indoor break, we camped out at the National Mall for the fireworks. Kai was attacked by gnats. I cried at the birds being scared of the fireworks. A fantastic time for this pair of roommates. Friday, this pair of roommates had the grand idea to go peach picking! We drove to Virginia and came home many hours later with 50 peaches (+10 eaten at the farm), a quart of blueberries, a quart of blackberries, 2 peach slushies (consumed), 3 jars (for peach compote), and stomachs full of Shenandoah berries (all compound berries in the Northeast are edible (especially wineberries (they are invasive. Eat them))). It was a fantastic day.

Saturday, I woke up bright (dark) and early for a 7 am flight to Boston for AAPT. I arrived, dropped my items off at the hotel, and spent the day walking around the city. Acquisitions: a bowl of chowder, coffee, a (very) jammy doughnut, a dragonfly book, a song sung about me by a man in the park, takeout lu rou fan. Sights: four bookstores, statues wearing pigeon hats, a priestly clothing store, all of Boston’s old streets, a historically accurate man using a printing press to print copies of the Declaration of Independence, and many ducks. Sunday, I went to a workshop called Maximising Learning and Engagement with Demonstrations (where I got some fantastic SOCK advice and ideas), hung out with my college friend (also here for the conference), and went to multiple welcome receptions (I met the board of AAPT? AND got a picture with Jocelyn Bell Burnell (I was starstruck). Crazy stuff). More AAPT to come this week!

This week’s dragonfly is Libellula saturata, the flame skimmer (or firecracker skimmer). It is a species native to western North America and the male dragonflies are bright red and orange. My friend sent me a picture of one this week. It’s awesome.

Week 7: The Southern Hawker

There are three more weeks of dragonfly propaganda left. I hope I have done enough propaganda that dragonflies become the most beloved insect. This week? The Southern Hawker, Aeshna cyanea.

The dragonfly body has ten segments (one is near the thorax, ten is at its tail), a thorax, and a head. Descriptors of each segment are used to identify species. The male Southern Hawker has many greenish spots, with blue spots and bands occurring in segments 8 through 10. Female Southern Hawkers only have green spots but have bands in segments 9 and 10. They are large dragonflies, with body lengths of 70 millimetres and wingspans of 110 millimetres. While they breed and have territory near ponds, they often hunt in woodland areas far from water. They are very active fliers.

Four forces affect things that fly: lift, weight, thrust, and drag. Gliding is a type of flight without thrust – there is nothing continually pushing them forward. When things glide, they sink through the air at a rate where they are moving more horizontally than vertically. They only move upwards when they fly through air that is rising faster than the rate they are sinking. Gliding things continuously losing energy to drag. In steady gliding flight, the lift and drag acting on an object balances its weight.

Insects such as dragonflies may glide for a variety of reasons. Migratory dragonfly species are gliders, which may be an energy-saving flight strategy. Gliding dragonflies also move quickly through the air, which lets convection currents cool their bodies without their muscles producing heat. This may help them thermoregulate, maintaining a constant body temperature. The Wandering Glider, Pantala flavescens, can glide at 15 m/s for 10 to 15 seconds. Dragonflies in the Aeshna genus (just like the Southern Hawker!) can glide up to 30 seconds without losing altitude.

Several structural variables influence how efficiently dragonfly species glide: how much weight the wing can carry, the veins and corrugation on the wings, and the body proportions and wing proportions. Dragonflies with disproportionately long abdomens will have higher drag. The veins and corrugation of the wings impact its stiffness and may impact drag and lift. Species that do a lot of gliding have broader wings, and longer wings may increase manoeuvrability. Wing proportions are described with an aspect ratio, a relationship between the length and average width of the wing. High aspect ratios mean there is a high ratio of lift to drag, meaning that the object can fly more efficiently for longer ranges with less drag slowing its forward motion.

Aeshna dragonflies. Ginormous, brown bodies with blue or yellow stripes, fantastic, great gliders.

This week my dragonfly propaganda went to the next level at AAPT. Monday morning, I went to a committee meeting and took notes for Justine, then played with some physics demos at a session titled Make, Do, Play, Learn: Revolutionary Ideas to Teach Physics. I made a little rubber band harmonica. Then, K-12 events, a STEP-UP Nosh and Know, the SPS reception (my team won trivia), and more K-12 events. I got to see Jocelyn Bell Burnell speak on transient space events! Tuesday morning began with another 7:45 committee meeting. Then, I saw my professor’s presentation (Wahoo! Dr Crouch!) and my friend’s poster presentation (Go, Nikhil!). I went to the plenary and then took a break in the K-12 lounge (thank god). Post-break, it was lunch and then time for my presentation. I presented in the K-12 lounge about the physics of dragonflies (what else would it be about) and the demos I am including in the SOCK kit. The best part? A group of teachers, Kayla, and Reidyn doing a little dance from the waves demonstration. Hilarious. Afterwards, I realised I had many dollars left from my AAPT food stipend, so I took myself to a fancy pasta dinner. 10/10. The day ended with an evening committee meeting where the Pre-HS committee brainstormed events for the Winter Meeting. Maia as a speaker? Stay tuned! Wednesday was the last AAPT day, and I went to two plenaries, some presentations, and had some lunch. Then, I was off to the airport and back in DC. May Kai be blessed by every god imaginable for having already made dinner when I got home.

Thursday, these two roommates drove into Maryland bright and early. We returned the Astro on the Mall materials (finally), and I sorted through all my SOCK materials packages. I packed some items for SOCK boxes. In the evening, I made a peach tart (delicious), we played Mario Kart (I am not good at it). I took Friday off (thank you, Mikayla), met a college friend for brunch, and then picked my girlfriend up from the train station (wahoo!!!). We went for a walk, and then I put her and Kai to work making dumplings for dinner (delicious). Saturday, we (my girlfriend and I) visited my cousins and got Chinese food, ice cream, cat time (Peebs!!!) and played Trivial Pursuit. Sunday was Planet Word Day (DC’s interactive linguistics museum). The museum was filled with two groups of people: families with children and sapphics. Good stuff. We stopped at a used bookstore on the way home and then made some pasta and cookies to watch the Copa America game.

Summary: Aeshna dragonflies are awesome, conferences are exhausting, the word museum is fantastic, 11/10 weekend, and I am bad at Mario Kart.

Week 8: The Common Darter

Dear dragonflies, I love you. We’ve covered all the dragonfly physics topics in the SOCK, so now it is time to move on to fun facts. Fun fact number one: dragonflies do backflips.

This super awesome fact was discovered by scientists Dr Jane Wang, Dr James Melfi and Dr Anthony Leonardo at Cornell University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, who published their findings in the 2022 paper Recovery mechanisms in the dragonfly righting reflex. How did they do this? Well, it started with catching a bunch of dragonflies. If you have never gone insect collecting before, I will tell you that you must be prepared to look silly. You must stand in dragonfly habitat (usually a pond or bog), body tense, ready to move. Your eyes must dart, inspecting the water’s surface for any movement. Then, the moment you see a flash of colour, a glint of a dragonfly speeding past you, you must strike. Swing your net quickly through the air and pray you aim correctly, twist it so your dragonfly doesn’t fly out, and fingers crossed, you have a dragonfly.

These scientists attached motion-tracking dots to the wings and bodies of dragonflies and then turned them over and let them drop in front of a high-speed camera. This wasn’t quite enough to see how the dragonflies were righting themselves, so they used the videos to create 3D models of the process.

Using some complicated mathematical modelling, they could see exactly how these dragonflies fell. The dragonflies pitched their left and right wings at different angles, causing their bodies to rotate around the vertical axis until they were right-side-up. They did backflips! Even cooler? These dragonflies did the same thing unconscious (albeit a little slower).

This prompted a new question: how do the dragonflies know they are upside down? Dr Wang and her colleagues covered the eyes of these dragonflies and repeated these experiments. These new blind dragonflies couldn’t flip themselves, meaning they use their eyes (well, a pair of compound eyes and three ocelli, or simple eyes) to figure out if they’re right-side-up.

There were further experiments that pre-positioned the dragonflies’ wings at certain angles or used dead dragonflies. These informed the scientists that muscle tone and wing posture are important to this backflip mechanism. It is not something they do actively, but rather a passive response!

Weekly dragonfly rant, complete. My projects? Still in progress. On Monday, I went to ACP-DC after dropping my girlfriend off at the Amtrak station (sad sad sad). There were some trials and tribulations in filming my first demo instructional video, but I ended the day with content (success!). On Tuesday, Kai and I drove into ACP-Maryland so I could pack boxes. 100 bottles of glycerin? Done. 100 packs of straws? Not done. I need more straws. We headed back to DC where I met my mum and brother for dinner (they’re here!) and finished the day with Kaden’s dewormabration (see Kaden’s blog for more information) and The Bachelorette. Wednesday, there was more ACP-Maryland (I got a ride from my mum, wahoo!). I packed bubble solution (very bubbly), tongue depressors, and stirrer sticks. Sonja and I headed back to DC together and then I had family dinner again.

New exciting things happened on Thursday–we went to NIST! There were some helpful presentations on what we should do with our lives post-grad, ‘Newton’s apple tree’ (not sure how much I believe in it), and some amazing tours. We also heard Dr Sarah Horst speak about the Dragonfly mission to Titan, which was incredible. I stand by my statement that it does Not look like a dragonfly. It is a rotorcraft. Friday I was back in ACP-DC to film and edit videos (I think it’s going well?). In the afternoon, Amanda, Charlotte and I walked to Georgetown and got piercings! Then, I met my cousins and mum for drinks.

I spent the weekend with my family. We went to the portrait gallery and had dinner with my great aunt and uncle. We ended the day with Trivial Pursuit and all did horribly (apologies to my girlfriend, I did not defend her win streak). Sunday, we had brunch and checked out the DuPont farmer’s market and Eastern market. I ate some yummy cheese. In the evening, I made cookies (miso brown butter chocolate chip, but not enough miso). As Kai said: busy as a bee!

This week’s dragonfly is the Common Darter, Sympetrum striolatum. It is the species Dr Wang and her colleagues used for their experiments! It is one of the most common dragonflies in Europe.

Week 9: The Fiery Skimmer

I say that if modern dragonflies were as big as their ancestors, with around two-foot wingspans (see Week 5: Meganeura monyi), I would still try and befriend them. Unfortunately, this would probably be a bad idea. Dragonflies at their current size have a hunting success rate of 95%. Truthfully, I do not want to face the mandibles of a giant dragonfly. I can guarantee you I would not be able to outrun it.

Not only are dragonflies deadly to their prey, but they are also deadly to bacteria (although perhaps not intentionally). Researchers from Australia and Nigeria discovered that dragonfly wings have an inherent antibacterial property. They developed a new technique using powerful ion and electron microscopes to look at the nanostructures of dragonfly wings. Unlike previous microscopy techniques, this one does not risk burning biological materials.

They found over 10 billion tiny “fingers” lining the wing surface. These blunt nanopillars vary in height and may have maximum widths of a few hundred atoms. Separate studies investigating the material of these nanostructures suggest that they are made of fatty acids, rather than the assumed chitin.

When the scientists analyzed the efficiency of these wings in killing E. coli, they found that the nanopillars’ bacterial killing mechanism was not like poking something with a massive bed of nails as we had assumed. Bacteria don’t die the second they touch the wings. Their membranes don’t touch the nanostructures at all. Bacteria on the wings secrete a molecular glue called extracellular polymeric substance (EPS). EPS plus the finger-like extensions of the E. coli stick them to the nanopillars. All this adhesive force deforms the bacterial membrane. When the E. coli starts to wiggle around and move, the shear force (the force parallel to its body) tears it apart. Its guts (well, cellular contents) leak out, and the bacteria deflates and dies. Then, the bacteria sink into the nanopillars. It is impaled. Truly dramatic. A kind of horror story, really.

Are there some questions about this study? Absolutely. First, this was done with E. coli, which has two membranes. Will the same effects happen with bacteria that have one membrane? Also, how much of an effect do the EPSs have? Will bacteria that produce less EPS still get ripped apart? Finally, does this mechanism still work if the nanopillars are at different heights? So much more investigation to do!

Now that we know so much more about dragonflies, I can talk about my week. Monday: blog writing, video editing, packing SOCK boxes. Tuesday: packing boxes, Niels Bohr library tour, editing demos. Wednesday: filming and editing vortices video, resume workshop (I need to edit my resume), unsuccessful journey for free books, successful journey home (highlights: fish market, June bug, Kai on an oversized chair). Thursday: intern appreciation lunch (Jessica says we can defeat imposter syndrome), more video editing, finished the SOCK additional materials, the Renwick and a beer garden (highlights: 1.8 Renwick, lawn chair go-kart, dinosaur vase).

Groundbreaking things occurred on Friday. We went to NASA Goddard! In list form (otherwise, this would be way too long), here are some of my highlights:

• The Hubble telescope texts its mom.

• Hubble star software that compared and matched star configurations was adapted to track and identify whale sharks and sea bass.

• NASA makes cosmic dust.

• Seeing the Hubble control room.

• Touching space rocks.

• Fantastic tardigrade poster.

• Pedro Pascal mass spectrometer.

• Getting to see the Nancy Grace Roman in construction!

• A slab of sandstone containing dinosaur tracks was found during construction of a building.

A great Friday rolled into a great weekend. Sonja and I had brunch and saw The Rover at the Shakespeare Theatre Company Academy with Collins and Reidyn. It was not at all what I was expecting, and also hilarious. We had some tea and walked home, and then Kai and I made dumplings for dinner. Sunday morning, Sonja and I walked to Georgetown and got delicious pastries from Yellow (Harissa egg croissant? Fantastic.), observed some rats, and walked around. We then rushed back to Shenkman for the 4 pm Intern Olympics. I am proud to say that my team came in First Place (oh yeah!). I kicked the ball (and accidentally hit Collins in the face) in soccer but did not come first at hallway hurdles (proof of why I could not outrun a giant dragonfly). Kaden, Brynn and my nation slayed.

This week’s dragonfly is the Fiery Skimmer, Orthetrum villosovittatum, the dragonfly the authors used in the bacteria study (Bactericidal Effects of Natural Nanotopography of Dragonfly Wing on Escherichia coli from Bandara et al.). It is found in some parts of Indonesia, New Guinea, and Australia in boggy seepages, streams and swamps. As you might assume from its name, the male dragonflies are bright, fiery red. The females are ochre-coloured. Fantastic dragonfly.

Week 10: Great Blue Skimmer

It is time for the final blog, and I realise I have neglected to give you (dear readers) a general background on the biology of dragonflies. So, here we go: Dragonfly 101.

Week one, I told you that there are around 3000 species of dragonflies, in the order Odonata with damselflies. I said that dragonflies are characterised by their huge compound eyes, two narrow pairs of intricately veined wings, and elongated, sometimes iridescent bodies. You may ask, what makes a dragonfly, not a damselfly? Dragonflies are stockier, with shorter and thicker bodies than damselflies. All of a damselfly’s wings are the same shape and they rest with their wings together, whereas dragonflies hold their wings out at right angles to their body. Finally, you can look at their eyes. Dragonflies have eyes that touch, damselflies do not. Ten weeks in, and now we know that dragonflies are not damselflies.

Some insects are born twice, in a sense. Dragonflies, like many other living things, begin life as eggs. Depending on the species, this egg may be laid directly in the water, inside plant tissue, or on various stuff around the water’s surface. After some amount of time, dragonfly larvae emerge. These larvae, called nymphs or naiads, spend their first life underwater. They are functionally wingless and dull in colour, hiding them amongst the sediments and plants they live in. Like adult dragonflies, naiads are formidable hunters. Their faces have a structure called a “mask”, a disproportionately large mouthpart that has a set of fanglike pincers at the end. Depending on the species, the naiad stage can last two months to several years.

Naiads eat, grow, and moult. With each successive moult, its wing sheaths become more and more apparent. When it is large enough, the naiad stops eating and journeys to the surface. Poking its head out of the water, it adapts to breathing air. Then, it climbs up a plant and secures itself. Once anchored, the naiad’s exoskeleton begins to split and harden, the body curling backwards as it emerges. The naiad swallows air and pumps hemolymph, the insect equivalent of blood, into its wings until it expands and is ready to fly.

Adult dragonflies do not live long, spending their time hunting and mating. Mating dragonflies form a “mating wheel”. Sometimes, this looks like a heart flying through the air. Dragonflies are an incredibly significant part of the ecosystem and a bioindicator of freshwater health. Not only are they an important food source for other freshwater organisms, their requirements of stable oxygen levels and clean water. Because of this, they can tell us a lot about the ecological integrity of the ecosystem, especially about the connection of aquatic ecosystems to the land.

So, not only are dragonflies super awesome, full of physics, and super awesome, but they are incredibly important parts of our ecosystem. Conclusion? Everyone should be a dragonfly fan.

If you have read any of my blogs, you know I am a dragonfly fan. This is evident in this year’s SOCK, which I spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday packing. Good news: 100 boxes packed and I learnt how to use power tools (thank you, Charles and Victor). Tuesday, post-box-packing, some of us had a quick jaunt to the botanical gardens to see the recently bloomed corpse flower (which did not smell like rotten meat, disappointing). I then made too much tomato stew and cried because I had one egg left. The egg problem was soon solved by buying a half dozen eggs (yay!). Wednesday, I watched Jurassic World: Dominion with my cousins. Dinosaurs? Cool. Giant locusts? I just think they could have been more accurate. On Thursday, all 16 of us went to ACP to practise our presentations. It was the largest number of us to have been in the office since, ever. Then, Kai and I made a peach cake and hosted a potluck. There were too many pickles. Friday was presentation day! We presented, and presented some more, and presented some more. My grandpa fell asleep (Sorry, Jaden). Kai moved out, and I mourned. We packed and then went to dinner at Tonic. Saturday, I left DC. Thank you to Jaden, Jenna and Charlotte for helping me pack the car before my journey began. Sunday, I ate a bagel, took two naps, said bye to my grandparents, and then got on a bright and early 2 am flight home.

So, writing this from my dining room table, goodbye DC. Thank you, interns, thank you SPS team, thank you every dragonfly species ever. To quote Charlotte’s blog: When else will you be 21 in a new city with 16 other physicists as friends? Turns out, this summer.

This week’s dragonfly is the Great Blue Skimmer, Libellula vibrans. It is 2.0 to 2.5 in length and found near lakes, ponds, and slow streams in the eastern United States. It is one of the largest skimmers. The immature forms are brown and the mature forms are blue, and I think it is beautiful.