Fridaygram: Galapagos on Street View, insect gears, Foucault’s doodle
By +Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog
Editor
Regular Fridaygram readers know that Street View goes places even if there aren’t any streets,
like
the
Galapagos Islands. This week we launched the panoramic images collected
earlier
this year with the
Street View
Trekker, and they’re pretty cool.
As we mentioned back in May, we also used an underwater camera to collect images of marine
life in the waters off the Galapagos. Between the land and the sea, we collected pictures of
blue-footed
boobies,
Magnificent
Frigatebirds, and other island creatures. These images will help with Galapagos
environmental research. If you’re interested, you can
read
more about it.
Speaking of the wonders of nature, researchers have used high-speed video cameras to record
insects
with natural gears that mesh to enable movement. Scientists Malcolm Burrows and
Gregory Sutton of the University of Cambridge found that young
planthoppers have microscopic
gear teeth that synchronize their legs when they jump. Their legs move within 30 millionths of
a second of each other, ensuring that their jumping is effective. As the insects mature, they
lose these baby teeth and learn to jump without them.
Finally, last Wednesday’s Google Doodle honored the birthday of legendary physicist
Léon Foucault, namesake of
the Foucault pendulum, which shows the effect of the Earth’s rotation. The
doodle itself
is a working Foucault pendulum, complete with controls to change its time and location. We
hope it inspires you to do some weekend inventing and adventuring of your own.
The world keeps turning, and Fridaygram
keeps publishing. Look us up for nerdy cool news right before you start your weekend. And for
still more amazing Galapagos stuff, see Darwin
for a Day, built by the Charles
Darwin Foundation and iNaturalist using the Street View
API.
