Tübingen, Germany – Current flying objects face a trade-off: Drones with propellers for instance are very agile and able to hover, however they use up a lot of energy. Airplanes on the other hand ...

A new ultra-lightweight robot can swim underwater – before emerging to fly through the air like a bird. The flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle (FAAV), created by researchers at EPFL in Switzerland ...

Loons, gulls, puffins, and petrels are some of the 100 species of birds that can both fly and swim. These diving birds can plunge in water to swim after prey, and leap back into the air to fly away.

Researchers say the $300 robot marks the first bird-scale machine to complete an air-to-water-to-air cycle using flapping wings alone. Watching a diving bird vanish beneath the water can feel almost ...

Who hasn't dreamed of flying like a bird? But do birds actually enjoy flying as much as we imagine? A new study by researchers at Utrecht University shows that galahs, Australian cockatoos, almost ...

A lightweight robot modeled on diving birds can swim underwater, break through the surface, and continue flying without using feet or propellers. The feat exposes a difficult mechanical compromise ...

A BIRD-LIKE, shape-shifting robot built to mimic the way the common swift alters its wing geometry during flight could slip in unnoticed among a flock of real birds. Equipped with twin cameras that ...

Researchers have developed a new kind of robot. It can't write our theme music. Only BJ Leiderman does that. But it can swim, run and even, one day, it might clean our coastlines. NPR's Ari Daniel met ...

Mechanical engineer Raphael Zufferey's lab at MIT contains a giant tank filled with bright turquoise water, an array of fans that can whip up a powerful wind, and small flying robots perched ...

Loons, gulls, puffins, and petrels are some of the 100 species of birds that can both fly and swim. These diving birds can plunge in water to swim after prey, and leap back into the air to fly away.