The Math of a Fly's Eye May Prove Useful 90
cunniff writes "Wired Magazine points us to recent research that demonstrates an algorithm derived from the actual biological implementation of fly vision (PLoS paper here). Quoting the paper: 'Here we present a model with multiple levels of non-linear dynamic adaptive components based directly on the known or suspected responses of neurons within the visual motion pathway of the fly brain. By testing the model under realistic high-dynamic range conditions we show that the addition of these elements makes the motion detection model robust across a large variety of images, velocities and accelerations.' The researchers claim that 'The implementation of this new algorithm could provide a very useful and robust velocity estimator for artificial navigation systems.' Additionally, the paper describes the algorithm as extremely simple, capable of being implemented on very small and power-efficient processors. Best of all, the entire paper is public and hosted via a service that allows authenticated users to give feedback."
Re:Anyone know about bees? (Score:5, Informative)
You mean this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2069903 [nih.gov] "Range perception through apparent image speed in freely flying honeybees."
Re:We don't understand it but we can do it (Score:5, Informative)
Aspirin's mechanism of action was unknown for a long time, but now we know it's due to suppression of prostaglandin synthesis by irreversible inhibition [wikipedia.org] of cyclooxygenase enzymes.
Re:WTF? (Score:1, Informative)
No. Addition is the subject of the verb makes. Subject-verb agreement says the original post is correct. Get your grammer rules right first if you're going to criticize.