Annoying as they are, flies are remarkable little machines. Read about how the fly's nervous system enables their ability to perform amazing aerial manuevers.
"Anyone who has watched one fly chasing another at incredibly high speed, without crashing or bumping into anything, can appreciate the high-end flight performance of these animals," says Dr. Holger Krapp, lead researcher from Imperial's Department of Bioengineering."They manage even though they see the world in poor definition: their version of the world is like a heavily pixelated photo compared with human vision. However, they do have one major advantage. They can update and process visual information more than ten times faster than humans, which is vital for an insect that relies on fast sensory feedback to maintain its agility."
