I come across all kinds of interesting things in the course of my daily activities. Take this item from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which describes how and why mosquitos aren’t just crushed when they collide with raindrops—which are many times more massive than the troublesome insect.
Using high-speed videography, they demonstrated that mosquito’s strong exoskeleton and low mass prevent any significant momentum transfer from the raindrop. As they said in the abstract, “Our findings demonstrate that small fliers are robust to in-flight perturbations.”
It would seem that being a lightweight in the presence of heavy-hitters is not necessarily a problem.
Questions: When faced with seemingly overwhelming odds, what do you do? Do you “ride with the tide and go with the flow”? Do you might against those odds? What benefits accrue from either of these approaches? What does it cost you?