Fly brains light the way for neurobehavioral circuits. Sometimes an aerospace engineer feels compelled to watch fruit flies walk on tiny foam balls. Actually, Vivek Jayaraman is not the only one ...

Mutations in specific Hox genes caused legs to grow out of a fly's head, wings to grow where they shouldn't be, and a number of other physical deformities.

In much the same way, when the researchers stimulated each motor neuron, the fly's head moved towards a pose specific to that motor neuron, with the insect's head rotating one way or the other to ...