Michael dickinson

When you see a fly flitting around your hair or your potato salad, you might see an annoyance. But in my lab, you really see a marvelous machine: arguably the most sophisticated flying device on the...

The robotic fly that we actually make the most use of in our laboratory is actually not a small thing, it's a giant thing. It has about a meter wing span, and it flaps in three metric tons of mineral...

Only flies have true halteres. In fact, the scientific term for flies, 'diptera,' means 'two wings.' Most insects, including bees, have two pairs of wings for a total of four. In flies, the hindwing...

There's so many mysteries related to how flies are able to make their way through the world. I'd certainly like to know a lot more about how their brain works. I'd certainly like to know a lot more...

We discovered that fruit flies alter course in less than one one-hundredth of a second, 50 times faster than we blink our eyes, which is faster than we ever imagined.

A fly with a brain the size of a salt grain has the behavioral repertoire nearly as complex as a much larger animal such as a mouse. That's a super-interesting problem from an engineering perspective.

The genus Drosophila is one of the great success stories. There's hundreds of species within the genus. They're on every continent except Antarctica, they're in tropical rain forests, they're in...

It is difficult, but intriguing, to imagine seeing the world as a fly might. First, flies don't have nearly the same visual resolution that we do... so you have to imagine a fuzzier image. Second, fly...

I grew up watching 'Star Trek.' I love 'Star Trek.' 'Star Trek' made me want to see alien creatures, creatures from a far-distant world. But basically, I figured out that I could find those alien...

Although their maneuverability is limited, blind flies can fly remarkably well.