Remote Controlled Flies?

Maybe you’ve noticed that I try and put things on here that are just weird that I find on other websites. The following from Yahoo.com/news is no different. Check it out:

“Scientists Create Remote-Controlled Flies
Sun Apr 10, 3:55 AM ET Science – AP

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Yale University researchers say their study that used lasers to create remote-controlled fruit flies could lead to a better understanding of overeating and violence in humans.

Using the lasers to stimulate specific brain cells, researchers say they were able to make the flies jump, walk, flap their wings and fly.

Even headless flies took flight when researchers stimulated the correct neurons, according to the study, published in the April 7 issue of the journal Cell.

Scientists say the study could ultimately help identify the cells associated with psychiatric disorders, overeating and aggressiveness.

Biologists have long known that an electrical stimulus can trigger muscle response, but this approach used focused beams of light to stimulate neurons that would have been impossible to study using electrodes.

Gero Miesenbock, associate professor of cell biology at Yale, said if the process could be duplicated on mice, researchers might be able to better understand the cellular activity that leads to certain behavior.

“Ultimately, that could be important to understanding human psychiatric disorders,” Miesenbock said. “That’s really futuristic stuff.””

Really weird. Remote control flies. I mean FLIES!!! They even mentioned that ones without heads could be moved using the appropriate stimulus. How close is that to reanimation? Seriously! I don’t know, I have a funny feeling about this (like everything else I guess). Soon they’ll have little bitty camereas in flies and have them flying around stores looking down at us making sure that we aren’t shop lifting. (I was always hesitant about how birds got into Super Markets…now I know…:P)

–Socram

PS Mathew makes his BLOG debut as a picture along side Triple H and Captain Jack Sparrow.

4 thoughts on “Remote Controlled Flies?

  1. flammable says:

    Heh…cute kitty. 😀

    Weird thing about the fruit flies. They gotta make a movie about this, sort of like Jurassic Park. Maybe having government satellites control built-in lasers to make the dying people (as well as human vegetables) attack cities in massive groups. THEN everyone will clamor for Terry Schiavo to be killed, as she could be a zombie!

    Sweet.

  2. socramforever says:

    Yeah, it was a good book. I think its possible for humans to allow machines to take over. I mean we have pretty much. Now with the internet very little has to be outside of the home. Eventually you’ll just stick some microchip thingy in one’s brain and all they’ll have to do is think and change the channel…or even more scary would be if the television wasn’t even in their livingroom but the television in their mind (because that’s where it will be placed one day). Wow this conversation got really freaky all of a sudden.

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