Postdoctoral researcher David Stupski, left, and Assistant Professor Floris van Breugel stand in front of a wind tunnel at the University of Nevada, Reno. (IMAGE)
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Assistant Professor Floris van Breugel and postdoctoral researcher David Stupski have uncovered an automatic behavior in flies, sink and circle, which involves lowering altitude and repetitive, rapid turns in a consistent direction. It shows that flying flies are able to assess the conditions of the wind before deploying a strategy to find a odor (which leads to a food source) using a strategy that will work well under those conditions. Flies aren't just reacting to an odor with a preprogrammed response: they are responding in context-appropriate manner. This knowledge potentially could be applied to train more sophisticated algorithms for scent-detecting drones to find chemical leaks.
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Chris Moran
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