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Fruit Flies Show Spark of Free Will

Posted by samzenpus on from the sorry-about-all-those-bio-labs dept.

Lucas123 writes "A study performed at the Free University Berlin on human free will has produced some unexpected results showing that fruit flies may have a spark of free will in their tiny brains." From the article: "Their behavior seemed to match up with a mathematical algorithm called Levy's distribution ... Future research delving further into free will could lead to more advanced robots, scientists added. The result, joked neurobiologist Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin, could be "world robot domination."

20 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Welcome! by Taimat · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one welcome our new cyborg fruit fly overlords!

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    The above comments are not guaranteed to make sense to anyone other than the author...
    1. Re:Welcome! by nxtr · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're laughing now, but wait until they have us farm for fruit en masse, as I understand it from the summary.

    2. Re:Welcome! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is all we need. Look out, PETA will soon be describing fly strips as insect murder...

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    3. Re:Welcome! by fireman+sam · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wouldn't that be considered insecticide?

      --
      it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
    4. Re:Welcome! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Slashdot reflex. Kinda like Pawlow described it.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:Welcome! by Plunky · · Score: 5, Funny

      If people really have free will, why do they keep automatically making that "I for one welcome our new overlords" joke?
      Its the American Idiot Syndrome. (Over here in Soviet Russia, its the Fruit Flies that welcome the new overlords..)
    6. Re:Welcome! by cp.tar · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's Pavlov.

      Does it ring a bell?

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      Ignore this signature. By order.
    7. Re:Welcome! by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're both wrong though cus the guy's name is actually ??????.

      Curse my DRM-infested eyeballs that are unable to decrypt the name!

  2. Joke? by pipatron · · Score: 4, Funny

    The result, joked neurobiologist Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin, could be "world robot domination."

    Oh yeah? I bet that in 5 years, he won't consider that a very fun thing to joke about!

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    c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
  3. Neurobiologist... by spune · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...joked. Then hastily looked over his shoulder and shuddered.

  4. then let's get to the real issue by commodoresloat · · Score: 3, Funny

    First, Levy's distribution is a, you know, distribution, not an algorithm
    Great. I think I speak for everyone here, then, when I say that what we really want to know is whether this distribution uses KDE or gnome?
  5. Damnation! by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 5, Funny

    > Fruit Flies Show Spark of Free Will

    If they've got free will, does that mean they can go to heaven or hell?

    Not hard to imagine Fruit flies swarming over the Apple in the Garden of Eden, though they would probably have preferred a banana.

    1. Re:Damnation! by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 3, Funny

      My free will can't override my instinctual reaction to kill whoever modded that insightful.

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      Apology to Ubuntu forum.
  6. Did anyone else... by alyawn · · Score: 2, Funny

    Did anyone else read that as Fruit Flies Show Spark of Free Wii ?

  7. Free will to choose what they like... by FeebleOldMan · · Score: 3, Funny

    Time flies like an arrow.
    Fruit flies like a banana.

  8. More ammunitions for animal rights crpativists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    In today's news:

    PETA spokesperson Pamela Anderson declares lawsuits against bug spray manufacturers, claiming the manufacturers have 'systematically enslaved, tortured, murdered free-willed, innocent creatures for profit.' On another news, thousands of animal rights activists infested themselves with West Nile Virus and malaria, claiming they would rather die of infectious diseases than to harm a single insect.

  9. A bit of intelligence is formidable in groups by Torodung · · Score: 2, Funny

    After watching a colony of ants outwit myself, my wife, and the poisoned baits we placed to annihilate them, I find it quite possible that the collective intelligence of meek creatures possessed of a little free will could rival the intelligence of a human being. ;^)

    Ants can work together as well as we can, why not drosophila too? Remember those stories about the bees dying? Maybe they just decided not to come back to their cage, and are in hiding. Worse yet, maybe they've joined the killer bees!

    The bee revolution will not be televised.

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    Toro

  10. freedom? by dwater · · Score: 4, Funny

    Freedom? In Germany?

    I thought the USA was the only place where there was freedom...

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    Max.
  11. What next, Souls? by lindseyp · · Score: 2, Funny

    You're trying to tell me something other than a person has free will?

    How preposterous. Next I suppose you'll be telling me animals have souls!

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    j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
  12. Small minds? by phorm · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well, as fruit flies might demonstrate... having free will doesn't oppose the possibility that one can have a teeny tiny brain.