In the time it takes a human eye to open, a blowfly can flap its wings 50 times, controlling each individual wing beat with numerous tiny control muscles - some of which are as thin as a human hair. An international research team from England and Switzerland has now visualized how this uniquely complex mechanism works, which is the result of 300 million years of evolution, in a 3D film. The film shows how the individual flight muscles move in the thorax of a flying fly.
To produce the film, the researchers x-rayed the fly from different directions and then assembled the individual images into the film using a computer program. They used X-ray light generated in the Swiss Light Source SLS - a particle accelerator facility operated by the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in Villigen, Aargau. Researchers from the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and the Paul Scherrer Institute were involved in the project.
