【英语时差8,16】飞行蝗虫的X翼战斗机和运动检测神经元

（单词翻译）

Don: Hey Ya?l, what do locusts², neurons, robots and the movie Star Wars have in common? Ya?l: You got me, Don. D: The answer is: Doctor Claire Rind, a biologist and robotics expert at the University of Newcastle, England. Dr. Rind wanted to design a collision-avoidance system for cars. So she decided³ to investigate the collision-avoidance system of locusts. Y: Why locusts? D: Locusts have fairly simple eyes and brains but still manage to fly in dense⁴ swarms⁵ of many millions without bumping into each other. She hoped that by understanding how locusts managed this feat⁶, she could design a robotic system based on their neural⁷ machinery⁸. Now here is where it gets a little wacky--she made locusts watch Star Wars while monitoring the reactions of their visual systems. Dr. Rind discovered that locusts have special neurons that respond specifically to looming⁹ objects--or objects moving straight toward the locust¹, like on-screen spaceships. These movement-detector neurons distinguish between approaching and receding¹⁰ objects by the way the edges of the object's image seem to grow or shrink in their field of vision. Y: Neat! D: Then Rind and her colleagues translated the locust's neural processing to a small robot with cameras for eyes and had it zoom¹¹ through an obstacle course. The robot was able to avoid collisions 91% of the time! Now a team of neurobiologists, engineers, and designers is working on an automatic collision avoidance system for cars. The so-called "Locust Project" uses the knowledge gained from Star Wars-watching locusts. One day your car may be able to avoid collisions with the speed and accuracy of flying locusts! Y: Now that's science in action!