Ukraine and Russia are now three years into what has been called the first drone war: not the first in which they were used, but the first in which they have been a major factor on the battlefield. What lessons have others drawn about the shape of future wars? "Drones are here to stay, and they will be everywhere – on the ground, in the air and at sea – in numbers," says Oleksandra Molloy at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia. "The point of no return was…

It messes up hair, it blows stuff in eyes, and most famously and rudely of all, one time it made a bridge in Washington twist and undulate until it exploded. Alright, maybe that was the fault of the engineers, not the wind. But still, strong gusts have the potential to threaten many technologies, including a new one: drones. If you've ever taken a quadcopter out on a windy day, you know the struggle. Now consider that in the near future, our cities will be swarming with delivery drones--and if we don't want them plummeting out of the skies, they'll have to learn to survive the elements.