To arrive at the heart of their new findings the researchers created an immersive virtual reality environment to test the fly’s behavior via visual stimulation and coupled the displayed imagery with an infra-red laser as an averse heat stimulus. The near 360-degree panoramic arena allowed Drosophila to flap their wings freely while remaining tethered, and with the virtual reality constantly updating based on their wing movement (analyzed in real-time using high-speed machine-vision cameras) it gave the flies the illusion of flying freely in the world. This gave researchers the ability to train and test flies for conditioning tasks by allowing the insect to orient away from an image associated with the negative heat stimulus and towards a second image not associated with heat.
This is seriously beyond what I would hace thought feasible. Literally a virtual reality rig for flies that tracks their wing movement to guide virtual movement? And yet we barely have a similar set up for human locomotion? What gjves?
Compared with humans, flies don't have many processing neurons between their effectors (wings) and their eyes. It's why they can take off so quickly when you try to swat them. Their simple but effective processing allows them to be more easily manipulated then humans. Also, the flies aren't going to say "Meh this VR has fallen into the uncanny valley" or similar.
It's why they can take off so quickly when you try to swat them.
It's also why defeating them is simple. They fly up and away from whatever is coming at them. But if you come at them on at least two sides, they simply fly up. If you sweep your hands toward them and then move up as you bring your hands together, you'll nail the fly almost every time.
That's a valid suggestion, but unfortunately wouldn't hide the substance. I think I have separate revulsion to insect contact and insect weight/mass. I'd prefer certain bugs to not touch me (e.g. ladybugs are fine), but I _really_ would prefer them to feel weightless. Something about a bug's weight being perceptible is intensely revolting to me, as if they're meant to be weightless wisps
The new part here is not the fly glued into a VR rig. Researchers have been doing the VR fly thing for well over a decade! Dickenson was doing this at Caltech at least in 2008.
Comments
That's wild!
This is seriously beyond what I would hace thought feasible. Literally a virtual reality rig for flies that tracks their wing movement to guide virtual movement? And yet we barely have a similar set up for human locomotion? What gjves?
Compared with humans, flies don't have many processing neurons between their effectors (wings) and their eyes. It's why they can take off so quickly when you try to swat them. Their simple but effective processing allows them to be more easily manipulated then humans. Also, the flies aren't going to say "Meh this VR has fallen into the uncanny valley" or similar.
It's also why defeating them is simple. They fly up and away from whatever is coming at them. But if you come at them on at least two sides, they simply fly up. If you sweep your hands toward them and then move up as you bring your hands together, you'll nail the fly almost every time.
They became easy to kill and fun after I got a bug-a-salt rifle. It is a salt gun for shooting flies and works quite well and is very entertaining at the same time. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FTVn6OhATaI&feature=emb_title
that's pretty genius. do you have a similar trick for getting over the revulsion at the thought of touching a fly?
Wash your hands thoroughly after? Works for me, although I'll still grab a rolled-up newspaper first if there's time.
Gloves?
That's a valid suggestion, but unfortunately wouldn't hide the substance. I think I have separate revulsion to insect contact and insect weight/mass. I'd prefer certain bugs to not touch me (e.g. ladybugs are fine), but I _really_ would prefer them to feel weightless. Something about a bug's weight being perceptible is intensely revolting to me, as if they're meant to be weightless wisps
Two of these then:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-killing_device#Flyswatter
The fly gun looks like fun too.
This guy SWATs
The new part here is not the fly glued into a VR rig. Researchers have been doing the VR fly thing for well over a decade! Dickenson was doing this at Caltech at least in 2008.
https://authors.library.caltech.edu/90960/
Welcome to the Metabzzzz