Magnet test shows mastery of fruit flies

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MEXICO: A bizarre experiment in which fruit flies carrying tiny magnets are forced to roll in the air has demonstrated the insects’ ability as “fly-by-wire” master aviators.
Scientists wanted to study how the flies manage to fly so well when their small bodies and fast-beating wings make them inherently unstable.
Tiny magnets attached to the flies made it possible to upset the insects by zapping them in mid-flight with brief magnetic pulses, forcing them to roll like out-of-control aircraft.
But the flies did not stay out of control for long. Instead they applied lightning-fast corrective responses, putting them fully back in charge in as little as 23 milliseconds.
Even after meeting their match by being spun multiple times, they were able return to normal flight within three or four wing beats after the scientists turned off their “tractor beam”.
The impressive speed at which the flies react, beating their wings at different rates and stroke angles, is almost unprecedented, said the US researchers.
Describing the study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, the authors led by Dr Tsevi Beatus, from Cornell University in New York, wrote: “We glue a magnet to each fly and apply a short magnetic pulse that rolls it in mid-air.
“Fast video shows flies correct perturbations up to 100% within 30 (plus or minus seven) milliseconds by applying a stroke-amplitude asymmetry… “Flies respond to roll perturbations within five milliseconds, making this correction reflex one of the fastest in the animal kingdom.”
Previous studies of fly flight used tethered insects but found that the animals did not respond the same way as they did when flying freely. In the new experiments, each fly had a magnet glued to its body consisting of a tiny 1.5 – 2mm long carbon steel pin that did not interfere with its wing motion and added around 20% to its weight.
Around 15 flies were released into a transparent box attached to a pair of “Helmholtz coils”, electromagnets that allow precise control of magnetic fields.