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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Quick-witted flies can 'detect swatter threat' |
| 2008-08-31 |
| Flies always appear to be a step ahead of the swatter. And now scientists believe they know why. According to new research published in the journal Current Biology, flies have a quick-fire intelligence and are good at planning ahead. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) filmed experiments using fruit flies and a swatter. They discovered that flies quickly calculated the location of the threat and an escape plan. Within 100 milliseconds of spotting the swatter they could move their bodies into a position that allowed an extension of the legs to save them. Caltech Professor Michael Dickinson, who lead the study, said in the journal that it showed how rapidly a fly's brain processed sensory information. "We also found that when the fly makes planning movements prior to take-off, it takes into account its body position at the time it first sees the threat," Dickinson said. "When it first notices an approaching threat, a fly's body might be in any sort of posture depending on what it was doing at the time, like grooming, feeding, walking, or courting. Our experiments showed that the fly somehow 'knows' whether it needs to make large or small postural changes to reach the correct preflight posture." And Dickinson had some advice on how to successfully swat the lightning limbed insects. "It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter," he said. Sort of like BO does when he's speaking to a new group of voters. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #17 Die Maggots! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-08-31 17:25 |
| #16 Nooks, naplam, followed by MOABs. Wrap each fly in a tiny pigsking suit and bury it wit no headstone. |
| Posted by: .5MT 2008-08-31 16:48 |
| #15 Pretty funny, AP.... NOT! we will avenge our... uh....nevermind /emily litella |
| Posted by: Flyash Liberation Army 2008-08-31 16:38 |
| #14 ROFL, AP! You lead such a interesting life. :-D |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2008-08-31 16:02 |
| #13 Got to get into their teeny tiny OODA loops, LOL! Actually, for amusement, we did the following at a log cabin camp in March in northern Alaska. Once we warmed up the log building, the flies literally came out of the woodwork. We would get them all abuzz by the windows during the day. Once they were all preflighted and warmed up, we opened the window, they flew out, to shouts of "Your freedom!!!" and "Godspeed, little fellahs!" Then they would fly out into the -20F air for 10 feet until their little oil coolers congealed and down they went to a frozen death. And this is one of the things we did for recreation, 30 miles above the Arctic Circle.... |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2008-08-31 15:18 |
| #12 I give houseflies the evil eye, just think of killing them, and they jump up & fly away. That saves me the effort of picking up a swatter. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-08-31 12:47 |
| #11 "The best part is the pleasure of wippng fly guts off your hands." For you, maybe, Richard. My mileage definitely varies. ;-p |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2008-08-31 12:47 |
| #10 Chopsticks (just kidding) |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2008-08-31 12:12 |
| #9 Hair spray works pretty well, too. Slows them down nicely. |
| Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields 2008-08-31 12:10 |
| #8 For amusement value, best method was the dart gun with swatter surface at the end of the dart that we had in my office when I managed a grain elevator in Illinois. It was reasonably efficient if the fly was on a window. |
| Posted by: Odysseus 2008-08-31 12:08 |
| #7 I prefer to hit them with a cloud of chemicals. |
| Posted by: Shaving Panda4504 2008-08-31 11:58 |
| #6 I prefer the Cleveland method, myself. Slowly approach the fly with hands in a clap position about 18 inches apart. Once the hands are positioned on either side of the fly and about a foot above the fly, swing the hands quickly together in a clap motion. In that 100 milliseconds, the fly has to decide between two moving hands. Which one is closer? Which one is faster. Which way do I go? Lots of questions for a micro-brained fly to process all at once. OVERLOAD! Default is this case is for the fly to fly straight up into the clapping hands. Squish. The best part is the pleasure of wippng fly guts off your hands. I am successful about a third of the time. Most times I get too excited and clap faster than the little fly can fly, but it's still fun. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2008-08-31 09:42 |
| #5 Who swats fruit flies? Mosquitoes, houseflies, greenheads, sure, but fruit flies? |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2008-08-31 09:32 |
| #4 That's because the slow-witted ones were massacred by foliage-wielding cavemen eons ago, which is why I expect the political left to be extinct before too many decades have passed. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2008-08-31 07:29 |
| #3 It's all in the wrist. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-08-31 07:26 |
| #2 swing for the area behind them - flies take off backwards |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-08-31 06:27 |
| #1 The key for catching flies is to position the swatter slowly until it is about 10 inches of the fly. Then and only then you go for the kill. You don't need to calculate where the fly will be. |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-08-31 04:53 |