Nature serves as an inspiration for many technologies, and researchers in the College of Engineering at New Mexico State University are taking their inspiration for a micro air vehicle (MAV) design from the hummingbird.

The researchers are using a scale model that can mimic the wing motion of an actual hummingbird, allowing accurate measurements and observations of how air flows around the wings as they flap.

MAVs can be used in a wide range of important surveillance and tactical reconnaissance functions. However, vehicles measuring 10 centimeters or less might have a problem with hovering and vertical flight in windy conditions. This has led to research on how animals like hummingbirds fly and hover.

The principal investigator for the project is James Allen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. The co-investigators are Banavara Shashikanth, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Paulo Ferreira de Sousa, a postdoctoral fellow in the mechanical engineering department.

Master’s candidate Jeremy Peña is working on the project as well. Another master’s candidate, Scott Hightower, was on the research team until his graduation in the spring. The three-year project is being funded by the Air Force

POLICE officers forced entry into a home in a bid to help a women heard crying only to find it was her rabbit who had called for attention.

Operators from a telephone monitoring service connected to the house told Bromley Police they could hear a woman crying and whimpering down the line in Shurlock Drive, Orpington.

It was believed the resident was in need of immediate help.

Two officers could not find a way of getting into the flat and no neighbours or relatives could assist them.

They demolished both the door and frame and a large part of the surrounding wall and hallway.

Once inside, both officers were confronted by a large brown lop-eared Dutch rabbit hopping around the front room and whimpering.

The rabbit, named Humphrey, had pulled the cord which telephones the monitoring service while his owner was out shopping at around 1pm on May 27.

A prosecutor has dropped charges against a woman who was arrested for staring at and making faces at a police dog.

“Prosecuting a woman for ’staring’ at a police dog is absurd,” said her lawyer. “People are allowed to make faces at police dogs and officers to express their disapproval. It’s constitutional expression,” said public defender Kelly Green, who represented Jayna Hutchinson.

Hutchinson, 33, of Lebanon, N.H., was charged with cruelty to a police animal and resisting arrest after a July 31 incident in West Fairlee in which police were called to a market to investigate a report of a brawl. They were approached by Hutchinson, who told one officer she had been assaulted the day before by one of the men involved.

She asked Vermont State Police Sgt. Todd Protzman to take her statement but he refused, telling her she smelled like alcohol and was drunk but that he would take her statement at another time.

After a heated exchange, she approached Protzman’s cruiser, where his dog Max was waiting, putting her face within inches of the window and “staring at him in a taunting/harassing manner,” Protzman wrote in an affidavit.

“While the defendant taunted my canine, Max was focused on the defendant and the perceived threat she presented to him,” the affidavit said. “He was no longer focused on me and the other officers at the scene.”

Officers arrested Hutchinson, adding the resisting arrest charge because she pulled her arms and upper body away during the arrest. She registered 0.21 percent blood-alcohol content on a breath test, more than twice the legal limit for drivers in Vermont.

On Tuesday, two days before Hutchinson was to go to trial, Orange County State’s Attorney Will Porter decided to drop the charges, after viewing a videotape of the incident over the weekend.

“I think it was going to be difficult to prove her conduct changed the dog’s behavior,” Porter said. “Most of the time (in harassment cases) people would come tell the court what it felt like. Dogs can’t do that.”

Without the cruelty charge, jurors would be unlikely to convict her on the resisting arrest, Porter said.

A two-and-a-half-year old maiden cow, which has started producing milk without giving birth to an offspring, has becomes the centre of attraction in the district of Satna in India, sources said today.

Sarita Dube said physical changes were seen in her calf a few days back and it developed into a mature cow.

Artificial Insemination Centre’s Veterinarian U K Garg said secretion of estrogen hormones from the body had caused the calf to yield milk.

Meanwhile, neighbours had started worshipping the calf considering it to be a divine incident, sources added.

Mobile phone ringtones of cows mooing are being used to lure stray leopards.

Forest guards in western India are using cell phones with ringtones of mooing cows, goats bleating and roosters crowing to attract leopards that have wandered into human settlements.

The wild cats in the state of Gujarat often roam into villages near forests in search of food, say officials, adding that this results in attacks on people.

But rather than use methods such as live bait like goats tied to trees to lure the leopards, which then fall into large pits dug by guards, officials say they have found a safer method to trap the cats.

D Vasani, a senior forest official in Gujarat, said: “The moos of a cow, bleating of a goat from the phone has proved effective to trap leopards. This trick works.”

Vasani said forest guards have downloaded the sounds of over a dozen animals as ringtones on their mobiles which they attach to speakers and fix behind a cage.

They then play the ringtone continuously for up to two hours until the curious leopard appears and moves into the cage looking for its easy meal.

Five leopards have so far been lured from villages since the new ringtone method was introduced a month ago.

The cats have all been released back into forest areas.

Wildlife activists welcomed the new initiative saying that previous methods of trapping the cats using pits often resulted in the animals getting injured.

A dog in China, given a drug used for treating human erectile problems, had to be hospitalized after mating with three females in a single day.

The dog was given intravenous drip in a hospital in Sichuan, reports the China Daily. Its owner, who considers her pet good looking, had been offering the dog’s services during mating seasons to other female dog owners wanting to raise puppies sired by the popular pet.

The report said the woman wanted to increase her seasonal stud fee income, which had averaged $128. She fed her dog the sex drug and forced it to mate with three females in a single day last week.

Toby, a 2-year-old golden retriever, saw his owner choking on a piece of fruit and began jumping up and down on the woman’s chest. The dog’s owner believes the dog was trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver and saved her life.

Debbie Parkhurst, 45, of Calvert told the Cecil Whig she was eating an apple at her home Friday when a piece lodged in her throat. She attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself but it didn’t work. After she began beating on her chest, she said Toby noticed and got involved.

”The next think I know, Toby’s up on his hind feet and he’s got his front paws on my shoulders,” she recalled. ”He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest.”

That’s when the apple dislodged and Toby started licking her face to keep her from passing out, she said.

”I literally have pawprint-shaped bruises on my chest. I’m still a little hoarse, but otherwise, I’m OK,” Parkhurst said.

”The doctor said I probably wouldn’t be here without Toby,” said Parkhurst, a jewelry artist. ”I keep looking at him and saying ‘You’re amazing.”’

A mouse munched its way through thousands of pounds worth of cash after managing to find its way inside a cash machine in a bank in Estonia.

The animal was found inside the machine after a customer withdrew some money and got partly-eaten banknotes outside the bank in the capital Tallinn.

Bank security experts are investigating how the mouse managed to get into the machine.

Kristina Tamberg, spokeswoman for Hansapank Bank, said: ‘We have never heard of anything even remotely like this happening before.

‘At some stage over the weekend the chewed money jammed, and the mouse seems to have spent the rest of the weekend turning the notes into bedding. It probably was attracted by the warmth from the machine and decided to make itself at home.’