Collaborate Disseminate
In an age of increasingly advanced robotics, one team has well and truly bucked the trend, instead finding inspiration within the pinhead-sized brain of a tiny flying insect in order to build a robot that can deftly avoid collisions with very little ef… Continue reading Robot built with ‘insect brain’ can zip around obstacles with ease
Scientists fed fruit flies a diet to make them extra plump. In their old age, the researchers put them on a diet and found remarkable results. If the findings transfer to humans, it might mean we can improve our health at any age by cutting calories.Co… Continue reading Study shows it might never be too late to live longer by dieting
It will come as no surprise that, on a whole, we’re eating too much sugar. Now, scientists have found that when our sweet tooth is sated, that craving is dialed down and in its place comes a sudden desire for fatty foods, which can wreak havoc on metab… Continue reading Sugar and fat “tug of war” can derail your diet before you know it
The spotted-wing drosophila is a type of fruit fly that can destroy berry crops if not killed by the liberal use of insecticides. According to a new study, the smell of a crop-damaging fungus could provide an eco-friendly alternative to such toxic chem… Continue reading Sweet smell of fungus could keep insects from decimating berry crops
By decoding a genetic process responsible for asexual reproduction, researchers induced virgin births for the first time in a normally sexual fruit fly species. It was then discovered that the remarkable trait was passed down to all of the flies’ daugh… Continue reading Virgin birth at Cambridge thanks to genetically modified fruit flies
Scientists are one step closer to understanding consciousness, with the unveiling of the world’s first complete, high-resolution brain map of the baby fruit fly. It’s the most complex and intricate connectome of any animal’s brain ever constructed and … Continue reading Insect brain map a landmark first step in unlocking human consciousness
Obesity is linked to a number of comorbidities, including musculoskeletal disorders. Focusing on the important role muscles play in metabolism, a recent study examined how time-restricted feeding in overweight fruit flies impacted the factors underlyin… Continue reading Time-restricted eating may hold key to obesity-related muscle dysfunction
Fruit flies differ from us in a great many ways, including the fact that they can’t move their eyes relative to the rest of their head. That’s not a problem, however, as new research shows that they move their retinas within their unmoving eyes instead… Continue reading Fruit flies found to move their retinas, instead of moving their eyes
Microgravity wreaks havoc on the bodies of astronauts, which is bad news given humanity’s space-bound ambitions. A NASA experiment housing fruit flies on the International Space Station has now shown that artificial gravity can help reduce some of thos… Continue reading Artificial gravity reduces spaceflight’s health toll in fruit fly tests
Researchers at Rice University have shown how they can hack the brains of fruit flies to make them remote controlled. The flies performed a specific action within a second of a command being sent to certain neurons in their brain.Continue ReadingCatego… Continue reading Scientists hack fly brains to make them remote controlled