bluesyemre

• Every penguin tries to maximize its own heat, but all members of the group benefit. In the icy freeze of Antarctica, Emperor penguins huddle for warmth – and they stay toasty even though they constantly rotate positions in the scrum.  Now, researchers have modeled the workings of the huddle, looking at the system through the lens of fluid dynamics. Francois Blanchette, an applied mathematician at the University of California, Merced, says that it took a bit of serendipity to bring him into the topic. “I was watching those penguin movies and got to thinking: I work with similar things,” Blanchette said. “You can see the wind blowing in all these movies, and you can see snowflakes — I thought maybe there’s a way to get involved in the idea of penguin huddling.”

http://j.mp/SqFo18