Once upon a time (the 80s) in a far-away land (Siberia), a wise old man (scientist, possibly crackpot) discovered the secrets of antigravity and a number of other things, through observation of insects. It seems that “Cavernous Structures” (for example, honeycombs, wasps nests, and even lots of man-made things like foam-rubber) exert some sort of force that you can feel with your hand… various experiments were conducted, with some great sketches and a photograph or two.

Later (the early90’s), he discovered that the chitin of certain beetles produced this phenomenon so powerfully that he was able to build a flying platform which allowed him to travel at rates up to a rather improbable 25 kilometers per minute. I’ll save you the math. That’s 932 miles per hour, or about Mach 1.2, while riding the contraption shown in the photo here. That could be a bad translation though… 25 meters per second would be about 55 mph, and 25 kilometers per hour is about 10mph, both speeds faster than walking but not requiring the rider to handle 900+mph wind resistance.

At any rate, while decidedly improbable, this makes for some really fascinating reading. The author is fairly methodical and direct, with no real hint of the foaming-mouth lunacy one usually finds when reading about these sorts of things. I highly recommend giving it a look. Let me know what you think of it below… and if you have any other articles like this you think might be worth sharing, please feel free to submit them.

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