Of a Frog’s Slap Shot and Saliva

You never know when a frog playing an electronic game will lead to an experiment on the physics of saliva....Alexis C. Noel, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, and her supervisor, David L. Hu, were watching a viral YouTube video in which a frog is attacking the screen of a smartphone running an ant-smashing game. It appears to be winning. They started wondering how — in reality — frog tongues stick to insects so quickly when they shoot out to grab them, and decided it was a phenomenon worth studying. David Hu is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and of biology, as well as an adjunct associate professor of physics, at Georgia Tech.