They Should Mimic Wasp and Bee Stingers.

• Position: MICRONEEDLE DESIGN

Next time you are stung by a wasp or a honey bee, consider the elegantly designed stinger that caused you so much pain. Researchers have found that the stingers of the two species are about five times softer at the tip than at the base to make it easier to pierce your skin. The stingers are harder closer to the insect's body so they do not bend too much, or break, as you yelp in agony

"Wasps and bees don't want to create too much pain to start with, and we believe the softer tip makes it less likely that you'll notice the initial insertion," says Bharat Bhushan, professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State University, Columbus. "If you felt the pain right away, you would react and swat the insect away before it finished injecting its venom."

Bhushan conducted the study with colleagues from the Indian Institute of Technology, led by Navin Kumar, associate professor of mechanical engineering.

"When you really study these stingers, you see how elegant and mechanically durable they are," notes Bhushan, who realizes "elegant' probably is not the first word a person thinks of after being stung. "Other words might come to mind first," he adds, "but when you're looking at it from an engineer's perspective, the stingers really are elegantly designed."

The stingers of bees and wasps are different in some ways. The wasps' are curved, for instance, while those of the bees are straight, but...