Scientists film inside a flying insect(plosbiology.org)
plosbiology.org
Scientists film inside a flying insect
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001823
6 comments
<Disclosure>I work in the group where these experiments were performed.
Marco Stampanoni is my boss, Rajmund Mokso one of my office mates.</Disclosure>
The flies legs were not pulled off as far as I know (I can ask tomorrow). It's simply that the field of view of the microtomographic setup is not big enough to have the whole fly in it (at this magnification and speed). I.e. the sample is bigger than the FOV, which we call "local tomography".
The flies legs were not pulled off as far as I know (I can ask tomorrow). It's simply that the field of view of the microtomographic setup is not big enough to have the whole fly in it (at this magnification and speed). I.e. the sample is bigger than the FOV, which we call "local tomography".
Awesome video clip buried in the paper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6lBkK3J9wg&feature=youtu.be
PLOS blog post on this paper: http://blogs.plos.org/biologue/2014/03/25/flies-fly/
For the curious: When the HN-posting bookmarklet limited the length of the article title, I lifted the title of the BBC News story.
This isn't quite what I thought it might be. I thought it was going to be a POV video, from inside a flying house fly.
This is really an animated CT scan of a restrained house fly, studying the mechanisms of its ability to propel itself through the air and maneuver during flight.
The video is really cool:
http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.figshare.com/1434931...
This is really an animated CT scan of a restrained house fly, studying the mechanisms of its ability to propel itself through the air and maneuver during flight.
The video is really cool:
http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.figshare.com/1434931...
PETA is probably preparing a statement right now over the inhumane treatment of flies in experiments like this.
Very nice science. Robert Hooke would be most impressed. There is an elegant mastery of space and time here where they can interchange them freely to come up with a result that makes sense.
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A tangent off in the weeds: There appear to be no legs on the fly in the pictures. I presume some lab technician is tasked with pulling the legs off of flies. Who knew that would be a job skill?