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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."

6 of 107 comments (clear)

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

    Any way of installing these wings on college students?

  2. Calculus? by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's like saying that a dog catching a ball or frisbee is doing calculus. Nope, it's experience. Push me this hard, and I push back that hard. It goes that way about that fast, and I'll go this way. Turbulence pushes me here, I'll twitch back. That doesn't mean calculus, that just means quick feedback.

    A human-built bug might have to do the calculus, but the natural bugs don't.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
    1. Re:Calculus? by stox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, it is doing calculus with a highly optimized analog computer. Amazing what Mother Nature can do given enough time.

      --
      "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    2. Re:Calculus? by arth1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Indeed. This is more like the smart bomb sights or artillery computers from WWII. Analogue all the way, and because of that, incredibly fast.

      A dog catching a hubcap-like plastic object is a more complex operation, and the brain is involved, running an evolved trajectory program that isn't very fast, nor very accurate, and tends to freeze when run in parallel. But it's fast enough and accurate enough that the dog catches the thing most of the time.
      Presumably, some far distant ancestor caught falling fruit or jumping fish, or catching tidbits flying from your parents ferocious eating, and the ability to just do slightly better than your peers meant greater chance of survival for you and your offspring.
      These days, the genes might be favored again, because we like dogs to play with us.

      Well, that's how it works outside Oklahoma and Alabama, anyhow.

  3. Re:how calculus? by TurboStar · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can you or anyone explain how what the neurons are doing is "calculus"?

    Calculus is how we scientifically communicate nature to each other, not away for nature to implement mathematics. Flies are not doing calculus any more than you catching a thrown ball is doing calculus. This headline, and perhaps the grant proposal, is written for stupid people. I hope this explains it for you.

  4. 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.