麻豆淫院

A team of bioengineers at Harvard University's Rowland Institute has found two new ways to control a tiny creature, essentially turning it into a micro-robot. In their published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group used a fruit fly's natural response to moving stimuli and odorants to effectively direct its movements.

Scientists have been looking into the possibility of controlling insects and other small creatures as a way to more carefully control activities such as pollinating crops, to perform search and rescue operations or even to conduct reconnaissance in war zones. Prior research has shown that it is possible to remotely control some insects by affixing devices to them that deliver shocks or sensors that listen to electrical impulses.

Both approaches allow only a small degree of control, however, leading scientists to continue looking for a better approach. For this new study, the researchers found one way of controlling the behavior of walking fruit flies without affixing any technology to their bodies, thereby preserving all their abilities.

The team took advantage of the fruit fly's natural inclination to turn left or right when walking in response to certain moving stimuli鈥攊n this case, a slowly spinning pinwheel. The fly's direction depends on which way the wheel turns.

To get a fruit fly to turn left as it was walking along the floor of an enclosure, it was shown a pinwheel spinning counterclockwise. To get it to turn right, it was shown a pinwheel spinning clockwise. By using a projection system to keep the pinwheel in view of the fruit fly, the team found they could guide it along a desired course. They also found that they could do the same with a group of fruit flies, resulting in a guided swarm.

The team took a similar approach to test another idea鈥攆ruit flies also naturally turn to the left or right when picking up an odor with their left or right antenna. Instead of presenting them with odors, which are difficult to control, the team added light sensors to their antennae, allowing them to be controlled using beams of light. They did roughly the same thing by affixing light sensors to the parts of the brain where the odor signals were sent and found it to be even more effective.

The research team found that the pinwheel and brain-sensor approaches allowed for approximately 94% accuracy in controlling the fruit flies鈥攅nough to get the fruit flies to walk through mazes or on paths that outlined words.

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