FIRST we had cockroaches with electrode implants that allowed them to be remotely controlled. Now flies have been genetically engineered to respond to light.
Gero Miesenböck of the Yale University School of Medicine has created strains of fruit flies in which certain types of nerve cells contain molecules sensitive to ultraviolet light. When a UV laser is shone on these flies, the nerve cells fire, revealing their function.
In flies where “giant fibre” neurons contain the UV-sensitive molecules, for instance, the light stimulates escape behaviours such as jumping or flapping wings. Even blind or headless flies react this way, proving they are not responding to a visual stimulus (…
