Jul 23, 2014 12:34 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

As humans continuously evolve, so does their ingenuity, thus causing one of man's greatest accomplishments to advance as well: flight.

According to LiveScience.com, a new study, published in the Journal of Applied Physics, suggests airplanes follow evolution patterns similar to flying animals, only on an observable timetable. In the past, scientists have deemed biological evolution impossible to see firsthand, but airplanes may offer an interesting window of opportunity.

For the study, led by Adrian Bejan, a mechanical engineer at Duke University, the researchers started with the earliest manned flights and tracked their various changes. They found several similarities between flying animals and airplanes, for example:

• Engine size is directly tied to the body's size.
• Body size correlates with efficiency, speed and range, i.e. larger designs can go farther and faster.
• Fuel correlates to body size, which is then proportionate to wingspan.

"We showed that larger airplanes are faster, more efficient as vehicles, and have greater range," Bejan said in a press release. "Engine mass is proportional to body mass, a design feature that is the same in animals where the mass of the motive organs - muscle, heart and lungs - is proportional to body mass.

"This again is akin to what we see among the flying creatures in nature, showing that airplanes converge the architectural design rules that unite them with their living counterparts."

The study researchers aligned their findings with the Construct Law, which ties the evolution of animate and inanimate objects together. Bejan said he would like to see the study make evolution simpler to examine by comparing manmade objects to natural ones.

"Armies of aerospace designers are pushing the envelope, but guess what?" he said. "The broad view of the future, which can now be predicted with the law of design in nature, says that new lines of aircraft will emerge along the lines discovered here."

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