WIKIMEDIA, MAKRO FREAKScientists have developed a technique to see inside the muscles of a blowfly in flight. The flies were tethered, but moving their wings, as X-ray microtomatography captured the internal mechanics of how their steering muscles operate. “This by itself is a grand achievement at a wingbeat frequency of 145 Hz,” wrote Anders Hedenström of Lund University in Sweden, in a commentary in PLOS Biology.
Videos of the flies, published in PLOS Biology this week (March 25), offer an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the flight muscles as a tethered fly is spun in a circle. “This has been an awe-inspiring project on so many levels, not least the exquisite complexity of the insects themselves, but seeing the 3-D movies render for the first time was one of those breakthrough moments that as a scientist I’ll never forget,” Graham Taylor of Oxford University, who led the work, told PLOS Biologue.
Hedenström pointed out that, while the study represents a “methodological breakthrough,” a tethered fly is not the same as a freely moving fly, which could roll, speed up, and stop. Also, ...
