Locusts Watching Star Wars

lewko writes: "Scientists discovered that locusts have a large nerve cell in their brains known as the Giant Lobular Movement Detector. This is what allows them to fly in swarms by the thousand without banging into each other. To monitor the brain signals, the researchers designed plasticine restraints for the insects and put them in front of an edited version of Star Wars which shows battle sequences. "Essentially, we made little armchairs for them and stuck them in front of TV screens," said Dr Rind. Of course this doesn't seem to stop them going bammo into my windshield... Or maybe that's just the depressed ones?"

The new Air Traffic Control paradigm that's needed

[GPS Pilot]

Yes, we need an new air traffic control paradigm -- but not one that comes from observing locusts.

Consider if you will, a future where...

all aircraft (including small personal craft) have a differential GPS receiver on board that computes position and velocity vectors with great precision;

said aircraft wirelessly network with all other aircraft within, say, a 20 km radius, transmitting their position and velocity vectors;

each aircraft runs an algorithm that would predict any collision or near-collision with another aircraft (or its turbulent wake) well in advance, and automatically makes minor course corrections to prevent them. (Not a big deal, because these personal aircraft won't be actively "piloted" anyway -- the "driver" will simply enter the desired destionation then sit back.)

and each aircraft has a fully redundant system (two GPS receivers, two transmitters, two CPUs) to ensure reliability

Many, many advantages to this kind of system:

no more mid-air collisions due to human error

aircraft can be much more densely packed in the sky -- current spacing regulations have an enormous factor of safety built in, because frequent human error requires it

no more spending $billions to upgrade the ATC system -- the legacy ATC system can be done away with altogether when the last aircraft is retrofitted

VTOL craft can safely land anywhere (parking lots, reinforced roofs)

sigh.

[angry old man]

Title of article: Locusts watching Star Wars may spell end for car accidents

Mental note: Researchers always have to relate every neat phenomenon to some never-going-to-be-practical use (i.e. prevent car accidents) in order to recieve $$$$$ from the industry. Actually these claims are made with hopes to recieve $$$$$ from the industry, but the industry is too smart to fall for it.

What was the last thing to go through the bugs mind as it hit my windshield?

Give up?? His Ass!!!

Locusts' Episode I review:

[thud2000]

Scientists monitoring the locusts' brain waves report that most of the insects regarded Jar Jar Binks as "lame" and "juvenile." Also that the entirety of Episode 1 was "sort of a letdown."

LOCUTUS watching Star Wars?

[BenboX]

For a second, I thought this news is about some sort of weird cross-over Star Trek / Wars thing [geocities.com]... man I'm such a geek.

Re:sigh.

[einhverfr]

Amusing. Very amusing. Next we will have small planes bouncing off our windshield insead of locusts ;)

Sig: Tell all your friends NOT to download the Advanced Ebook Processor:

Collision Detection for cars = silly idea

[RoninAdmin]

Collision detection for cars based on this is a leap in the wrong direction. Now aeroplanes, or hellicopters would be a better application. The little buggers are already wired for flying in swarms, what do we do that mimics this sort of behavior? Fighter jet formations in dog fights? Air traffic control? Image planes that could automatically hold a tight patern above an airport, without running into eachother (just because the pilot couldn't see the other plane).

Re:sigh.

[slashdot_commentator]

Mental note: Researchers always have to relate every neat phenomenon to some never-going-to-be-practical use (i.e. prevent car accidents) in order to recieve $$$$$ from the industry.

Like implementing a bare-bone artificial version of the Giant Lobular Movement Detector into a car's steering control to avoid colliding into objects in motion at high speed? Do you think the GLMD is processing multiple-vector calculus formulas to determine the physical point of collision and then avoid it? Or that it just has a real effective way of figuring how to avoid objects in motion? Whose operating principles could also be applied to aircraft, robots in the home, etc.?

Actually these claims are made with hopes to recieve $$$$$ from the industry, but the industry is too smart to fall for it.

I'm glad these scientists are pissing away money in this manner. And I'm glad they're smarter than you.

And they call this science???

[slashdot_commentator]

"Essentially, we made little armchairs for them and stuck them in front of TV screens," said Dr Rind.

Damn. You'd think these scientists would have better things to do than make cochroaches comfortable and entertain them.

Neat!

[Elendur]

Transformed into couch potatoes, when the locusts were shown footage of a Empire fighter or Millennium Falcon hurtling towards the camera they sent out brain signals via their detectors to swoop away from the danger.

With scientists at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich, the research team has designed an electronic circuit to mimic the locust's behaviour. It has already been fitted to a small robot and made to avoid collisions.

The result of this is that when your car detects a locust on a collision course with itself, it will suddenly swerve off the road, or even better, into the 18 wheeler in the next lane.