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Fruit flies – fermented-fruit connoisseurs – are relentless party crashers

By Guest PostFebruary 17, 2014Sciencealgorithm, controlling robotic systems, dickinson lab, fermented fruit connoisseurs, floris van breugel, fruit flies, genus drosophila, glass of cabernet, mental map, michael dickinson, neurons, robot, university of washington, visual exploration

That fruit fly joining you just moments after you poured that first glass of cabernet, has just used its poppy-seed-sized brain to conduct a finely-choreographed search, one that’s been described for the first time by researchers at the University of Washington.

The search mission is another example of fruit flies executing complex behaviors with very little “computational” power, their brains having 100,000 neurons compared to house flies with 300,000 neurons and humans with 100 billion. (more…)

Question: Do your legs know what your tongue is doing?

UCLA researchers build a multisensory virtual world

To survive, animals must explore their world to find the necessities of life. It’s a complex task, requiring them to form them a mental map of their environment to navigate the safest and fastest routes to food and water. They also learn to anticipate when and where certain important events, such as finding a meal, will occur.
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Fruit flies – fermented-fruit connoisseurs – are relentless party crashers

Question: Do your legs know what your tongue is doing?