GOOD SCIENCE
PLAGUE CHEERS: Ayali’s mechanical version can jump higher and farther than locusts.
NIR ELIAS/REUTERS/ TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
FOR MOST HUMANS, insects are a nuisance, but Amir Ayali has spent years researching them. The Tel Aviv University zoology professor studies how they walk, jump and fly —the kinds of movement at which they excel—and translating his observations so engineers can build better machines.