As Nature.com recently reported, scientists, using Super High Powered X-Rays, have discovered how insects breathe. The system is comprised of tracheae that run throughout the insect's body, which become smaller as they branch off, and ultimately vent through what's known as spiracles. This is a huge breakthough in the study of insects, but unknown is what further discoveries will pursue.

 

Full article here.

Also See ScienceMag

Cool.

Ummm... I learned about that system at school. That was years ago.

 

You sure they didn't prove something new about that mechanism?

Read the article:

 

"Everybody always thought that tracheae were stiff tubes, and that they worked by plain diffusion," says Mark Westneat, associate curator of zoology at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. "That idea has been dying for a while and our result puts it to death."

So I now concur with faf.