Robert Michelson is an aerospace engineer at Georgia Tech where he works on designing flying machines the size of birds, and hopes to get them down to insect-size. He tells Steve Paulson how these machines might be used by the military or in hostage negotiations, or to protect crops. Also, University of Illinois biologist Fred Delcomyn tells Jim Fleming that we don't give cockroaches enough credit and that they're terrific models for engineers trying to design autonomous mobile robots -- devices that might explore the surface of another planet or crawl inside a nuclear reactor.

Biologist Michael LeBarbera teaches biomechanics at the University of Chicago, and devours "B" movies. He tells Jim Fleming that most movie monsters are structurally ridiculous; that you should go for the legs of those vastly scaled-up radioactive ants; and that the incredible shrinking man (and his ilk) can't get a drink. Also, paleontologist David Jablonski (also from the University of Chicago) says his study of prehistoric clams and mollusks indicates that there is no evolutionary imperative to get bigger. He tells Steve Paulson that size depends on particular animals in particular ecological situations.