lol, sounds good but it's unfortunately not true. The science is that bb's can't fly using aerodynamic lift (the wings are too small and the wrong shape), which is true.
The cool thing about science is that it then asked the question that if bb's can't fly the way most things do, then how do they fly? That in turn generates lots of new ideas and research. (fwiw, the actual mechanism is described in science-lite terms
here.)
But speaking of nature and science, this caught my eye last year
The bumps on a humpback's fins inspire a new line of green-tech blades for turbines, fans, and maybe the home. It's pretty neat how a casual observation can change things....
BTW - re the steam engine; it really was more of a steam turbine. I built one as a kid - a long time ago, but not all the way back to greek days. Essentially a hollow sphere with some water inside, an angled jet from each side and heated from below. As the water boiled in the container, the steam escaping through the jets would drive it round.
A big problem though is that the Greeks - while being able to invent this - lacked the technology to harness the power efficiently (everything from ball bearings to gearing to efficient drive mechanisms). The Greeks were great at theory, but in the long run were pretty bad at the practical side of things....
(I hope I haven't offended anyone with this, my first post here. I usually prefer to wait until my second or third, at least
)
