AI and robotics demystify the workings of a fly's wing

Machine learning and robotics have shed new light on one of the most sophisticated skeletal structures in the animal kingdom: the insect wing hinge.
Unlike birds or bats, which evolved wings by adapting existing limbs, insect wings are wholly original appendages, and understanding how the complex hinge that links the insect wing to its body works has been a challenge.
But now a team of researchers have combined cutting edge imaging, machine learning and robotics to build a model that is shedding new light on the structure.
Read the paper: www.nature.com/articles/s4158...

[@highvoltage47]

top notch production quality, especially visualizing the wing hinge shows just how insanely complicated even the smallest creatures are

[@gabedarrett1301]

Genetic engineering, neural networks (AI), and aerospace engineering are what's required to solve this extremely challenging problem. Humans can do anything when they work together!

[@kuwaitman]

My brain is telling me if there is a design, there must be a designer ..

[@mohammedsamir5142]

[Quran: Al-Hajj, 73] O mankind! A similitude has been coined, so listen to it (carefully): Verily! Those on whom you call besides Allah, cannot create (even) a fly, even though they combine together for the purpose. And if the fly snatched away a thing from them, they would have no power to release it from the fly. So weak are (both) the seeker and the sought.

[@ExopMan]

Ornithopters incoming

[@kaiseraugustus1393]

And the conclusion is?.... yes, there was no evolution

[@mjay4700]

Nice so now instead of high pitched whining drones with propellers we'll be hearing loud buzzing of drone wings.

[@Gailon1000]

casually making muscles of flies glow. You know, as you do :D

[@phanyen8513]

I know that human, even insects and animals now can be directed/monitored by a computer. Where is the human right to decide how are we going to be?

[@eugenes9751]

12 neurons for control.... I am so terrified for when we build ai controlled, self-reproducing insects.

[@myhandle__]

Appreciating nature for publishing videos too rather than research paper alone.

[@aquaticape68]

Fantastic and amazing- insect flight should be seen as the genuinely original flight system- with birds and bats a crude subset.

[@DanaTheLateBloomingFruitLoop]

This is beyond amazing! I wonder if there will ever be a functional manned aircraft with insect-inspired wings.

[@ralphmck6369]

Excellent presentation, only spoiled by the absurd suggestion that this incredible design is some chance evolutionary result!

[@sebby007]

That is such incredible engineering! Insane performance per neuron!

[@footfault1941]

An impessive anatomical details in motion! Beauty means this. Technology behind the scene can't be missed, either.

[@urimtefiki226]

I used to watch insects for half hour or more, many insects different ones.

[@kellymoses8566]

genetically engineering flys to be able to record muscle activation during flight, then recording 3D motion of the wings during flight, and then training a neural network based on the data is amazing.

[@footfault1941]

Perhaps a poster child of a modern era. Technology behind the scene stays behind, but explicit inevitably.

[@johncollins8304]

I'd like models of their flight over different periods of time -- 5 secs, 10 secs, etc. -- maybe in a perspex cube.