How do insects fly? How are the physical aspects of flying connected to the insect's neural circuitry? How do scientists use this information?

For Sofia Villacreses, who lived in Ecuador until she emigrated to NYC, the plan for college had been modest. But as two years of community college drew to a close, her friends pointed out her potential.

While engineers have had success building tiny, insect-like robots, programming them to behave autonomously like real insects continues to present technical challenges. A group of Cornell engineers...