Fruit flies fly like an arrow.
Fruit flies use the power of the sun to help them fly in straight lines
Fruit flies may have tiny brains about as big as poppy seeds, but their noggins are complex enough to the remember the Sun’s position to help with navigation, according to a new study in the journal Current Biology. Without these special compass cells in their brain fruit flies, known as Drosophila, would end up flying …
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Friday 31st August 2018 09:11 GMT Kubla Cant
Drosophila can fly nearly 15 kilometers - over nine miles - across Death Valley in a single evening
As long as there's an over-ripe banana on the other side of Death Valley.
The other superpower of fruit flies appears to be evasion. Judging by the way they fly and their small size, you expect to be able to grab one in flight, but they always seem to dodge at the last minute.
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Friday 31st August 2018 10:14 GMT JimmyPage
The other superpower of fruit flies appears to be evasion.
Because their minds are running waaaaaaaaaay faster than our mammalian neurons. They see the world in ultra slow motion.
(Little tip ... they take off *backwards*. You can splat them if you aim a little up and behind them).
I'll believe more in this AI bollocks when someone can rig up some software to track a fly - in real time.
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Friday 31st August 2018 23:11 GMT Spherical Cow
It's fairly easy to flick a sitting fly with your finger. Get your finger ready to flick, then "creep up" on the fly by slowly sliding your hand along the surface the fly is on. When in range, FLICK! The fly is usually stunned for a few seconds, giving you time to deal with it permanently.
A finger-flick is the fastest movement a human can make.
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Friday 31st August 2018 10:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Fly Superpowers
The speed at which signals travel between different regions of biological brains is really quite slow, somewhere in the order of 100-200 mph iirc, and this means that the inter-region travel times can be lower in a smaller brain than they could be in a larger brain: the effect is that a smaller brain can be thought of as having the potential to operate at a higher frequency than a larger brain. If we compare the size of regions in the human brain - say a couple of inches - with the size of the entire fruit fly brain - apparently the size of a poppy seed - we can see that the relative inter-region travel times for a fruit fly will be several orders of magnitude lower than those for a human.
At the same time, being smaller makes the brain less complex and capable so the 'problems' it must solve need to be simplified, essentially by reducing the amount of data that needs to be considered - while it's flying along it won't also be wondering if Ralph really meant what he said last night, whether Clapton exists, or getting distracted by the scenery.
As a consequence, things that happen at what we regard as a 'normal' rate/speed appear to happen in slow motion from the fruit flies' point of view - what seems swift to you seems snail-like to the fly.
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Friday 31st August 2018 13:21 GMT Not also known as SC
Flying Round in Circles
"Without these special compass cells in their brain fruit flies ... would end up flying endlessly in circles."
Any idea why? Are the wings different sizes, or do the researchers mean to say that they'd expect the flies to always fly towards the Sun so would they follow the sun? My initial theory was too much fermented fruit but I'd be interested in the real reasoning behind this statement.
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Friday 31st August 2018 13:54 GMT Gene Cash
Re: Flying Round in Circles
Why would they fly in a straight line? If they don't, it's some kind of arc, which will probably lead to a circle.
Flying in a straight line is rather difficult.
And it's not going to be a circle either, the flight path will probably end up resembling a bowl-of-spagetti sort of path.
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Friday 31st August 2018 17:44 GMT Not also known as SC
Re: Flying Round in Circles
@Gene Cash According to the Mighty Boosh, a human will walk in a circle with no reference points to refer to because we have one leg longer than the other. I just wondered if the same thing applied with slightly different wing sizes leading to the fly moving in an arc as you said. However as the text referred to the flies aligning with the light source I wondered if the researchers meant that if the inbuilt compass cells weren't present the flies would always head towards the light source.
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Monday 3rd September 2018 10:03 GMT Allan George Dyer
This article says black widow spider silk was used by the US because it was thin, elastic and durable, no mention of the web angle. Also, the UK used spiders from the Yorkshire moors. Have an upvote for leading me to an interesting topic.
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Sunday 2nd September 2018 22:08 GMT StuntMisanthrope
3rd Slip, if you're bowling pies.
It's the weekend and the cricket's on. Not everybody's cup of tea, I grant you. However, if you're paying attention, the pitch looked favorable. That being said, I'd still have a butchers when the phase has passed at that magnetic chemistry. You can never tell whether effect, past action or the sound is good. #foodforthoughtandsharing