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Flies That Do Calculus With Their Wings

Posted by samzenpus on from the show-your-work dept.

DudeTheMath (522264) writes "Cornell University scientists studied how fruit flies respond to flight disturbances (instead of wind gusts, they used carefully controlled magnetic pulses) and found that the flies recover in as little as three wing beats (at 250 per second) by doing some kind of calculus in a little 'integrated circuit' of neurons that control the wings directly. The pitch and yaw results are already published, and the roll study is forthcoming."

3 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting by colinrichardday · · Score: 5, Funny

    Any way of installing these wings on college students?

  2. So... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Horrid little vermin, and the thing likely has a couple of brutally well optimized high speed analog PID controllers, all within its (very tight) payload limits, and all since before we were grunting and hitting one another with rocks. Thanks nature...

  3. Re:Time, distance, motion, acceleration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is nothing. My desk lamp does REAL-TIME ray tracing!

    Especially when I put a couple reflective spheres on a checkerboard underneath it.