Stevens Institute of Technology: How the Beetle Got Its Bang
June 17, 2020
June 17, 2020
HOBOKEN, New Jersey, June 17 -- Stevens Institute of Technology issued the following news release:
If you want to see one of the wonders of the natural world, just startle a bombardier beetle. But be careful: when the beetles are scared, they flood an internal chamber with a complex cocktail of aromatic chemicals, triggering a cascade of chemical reactions that detonates the fluid and sends it shooting out of the insect's spray nozzle in a machine-gun-like pulse of toxic, scald . . .
If you want to see one of the wonders of the natural world, just startle a bombardier beetle. But be careful: when the beetles are scared, they flood an internal chamber with a complex cocktail of aromatic chemicals, triggering a cascade of chemical reactions that detonates the fluid and sends it shooting out of the insect's spray nozzle in a machine-gun-like pulse of toxic, scald . . .