As a fly flies through its environment, static objects produce moving images on its retina, and this optic flow is essential for steering and course corrections. Different types of rotation and translation produce unique flow fields, which fly brains are wired to identify. However, a feature of optic flow unique to translational motion is that adjacent images may move across the retina at diffe...

The TRPN1 ion channel has a role in both hearing and bristle mechanosensation in fruit flies and in proprioception in nematodes. In this issue of Neuron, two papers present evidence that TRPN1 is also required for proprioception in fruit fly larvae and that it is a bona fide mechanoreceptor channel for nematode feeding behavior.

A motor protein called Klp10A ensures that germline stem cells in male fruit flies divide to produce two sibling cells that are equal in size.

Animals' behaviour towards odours depends on both odour quality and odour intensity. While neuronal coding of odour quality is fairly well studied, how odour intensity is treated by olfactory systems is less clear. Here we study odour intensity processing at the behavioural level, using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. We trained flies by pairing a MEDIUM intensity of an odour with electr...

Owing to aerodynamic instabilities, stable flapping flight requires ever-present fast corrective actions. Here, we investigate how flies control perturbations along their body roll angle, which is unstable and their most sensitive degree of freedom. 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° wit...

The tiny brains of insects presumably impose significant computational limitations on algorithms controlling their behavior. Nevertheless, they perform fast and sophisticated visual maneuvers. This includes tracking features composed of second-order motion, in which the feature is defined by higher-order image statistics, but not simple correlations in luminance. Flies can track the true direct...

This review is the first comprehensive treatment of the biology of nonfrugivorous fruit flies of the family Tephritidae. Feeding habits of destructive and useful species, morphology of immature stages, and hypotheses regarding structural homology and the evolutionary biology of nonfrugivorous tephritids are reviewed, including zoogeography and theories involving resource heterogeneity, guild st...

Fragile X syndrome (FraX) is the most common inherited mental retardation disease. It is caused by mutation of the fragile X mental retardation 1 (fmr1) gene. The FMR1 protein (FMRP) is a widely expressed RNA-binding translational regulator with reportedly hundreds of potential targets. Recent work has focused on putative roles of FMRP in regulating the development and plasticity of neuronal sy...

It is unclear which ratios of yeast extract to sucrose result in maximum egg production and survival in many tephritid fruit flies. Objectives here were to determine yeast extract:sucrose ratios that maximize egg loads without compromising survival in western cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis indifferens Curran, and their effects on mortality caused by spinosad bait (GF-120). Yeast extract:sucrose r...