Business Standard ·
From dancing to playing poker, is there anything fruit fly brain can't do?
For years, researchers worked to develop sophisticated imaging techniques to map the connections within the nervous systems of various organisms.
What can a fruit fly do? Buzz around ripe bananas, sure. But maybe, a whole lot more. Like parallel park. Or play Minecraft.
Creative internet users have in recent days taken a complete map of a fruit fly’s 166,000 neurons, published by Google, and made simulated flies do some things that are pretty impressive, given that these insects have a brain the size of a poppy seed. One has been trained to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Another dances to the Village People’s YMCA in response to four tones. Others have envisioned fruit flies playing poker and blackjack and slicing a doner kebab.
