Everything you wanted to know about fly swatting

The brains of flies are wired to avoid the swatter, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

At the mere hint of a threat, the insects adjust their preflight stance to flee in the opposite direction, ensuring a clean getaway, they said in a finding that helps explain why flies so easily evade swipes from their human foes.

"These movements are made very rapidly, within about 200 milliseconds, but within that time the animal determines where the threat is coming from and activates an appropriate set of movements to position its legs and wings," Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement.

"This illustrates how rapidly the fly's brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response," said Dickinson, whose research appears in the journal Current Biology.

Dickinson's team studied this process in fruit flies using high-speed digital imaging equipment and a fancy fly swatter.

In response to a threat from the front, the fly moves its middle legs forward, leans back and raises its back legs for a backward takeoff. If the threat is from the side, the fly leans the other way before takeoff.

The findings offer new insight into the fly nervous system, and lends a few clues on how to outsmart a fly.

"It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position," Dickinson said. Instead, aim for the escape route.

Dickinson, a bioengineer, has devoted his life's work to the study of insect flight. He has built a tiny robotic fly called Robofly and a 3-D visual flight simulator called Fly-O-Vision.

Maybe he was Just getting deep into character???

David Duchovny has entered a rehabilitation facility for sex addiction.

In a statement released by his lawyer, Stanton Stein, the actor said he did so voluntarily, adding: "I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family."

The actor's publicist, Flo Grace, confirmed the rehab report, which first appeared on People.com.

She and Stein both declined to elaborate further.

Duchovny, 48, plays a sex-obsessed character on the Showtime television series Californication, which earned Emmy nominations for casting and cinematography. The show's second season begins September 28.

Showtime had no comment on Thursday.

The actor appeared in the film The X Files: I Want to Believe earlier this year. He has been married to actress Tea Leoni since 1997. They have two children.

Rest well

It isn't often I will pay tribute to anyone who is high profile with the media.
However I greatly admired the skill of mark Priestley and am saddened by his death.
A long running actor in an Australiuan Medical show "All Saints" he was one of my favorite Characters.
The evening before his death the show aired with a huge audience watching his on screen marriage to costar Jolene Anderson. It brings home the seriousness of depression a condition people tend to overlook quite often.



Mark, who suffered from depression, had checked into a room with a balcony on the 23rd floor of Sydney's Swissotel at 11.30am Wednesday using the pseudonym Damian Barker.
He plunged to his death 90 minutes later.
Nearby office workers called the police reporting hearing a loud bang.
It took another three hours before Priestley's body was recovered by police on a 10th floor ledge of a building next to the hotel.
Priestley reportedly recently split from his girlfriend, playwright and actress Kate Mulvany.
The pair, based in Sydney but originally from Perth, had been together for several years and Priestley is understood to have been struggling since the relationship ended a few weeks ago.

The day Mark Priestley jumped to his death his Costar Jolene received an injury to her arm after her car was hit by a truck.

Fresh start

Well after several have asked me to restart my blog I decided to put it back up.

Details of why my blog was removed dont need to be discussed, I don't care who reads my blog or who comments, everyone is welcome but what I will say is "if what I write is upsetting you , don't read it anymore". I will not supress nor apologise for my thoughts or feelings to anyone if I did it would be a false apology.

Alfred Hitchocks movie The Birds comes to mind.

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - The Scottish government has declared war on increasingly aggressive urban seagulls.

The initial battle will be joined in the southwestern town of Dumfries during next spring's breeding season when a special anti-gull "task force" will seek to destroy nests and drive out the birds.

"Seagulls are a menace to Scottish towns and cities," said Environment Minister Michael Russell. "They thrive on litter and their aggressive behaviour towards other birds, pets and even people is increasing."

He said Dumfries had a particular problem with regular reports of gulls "dive-bombing" humans.

Russell said he had even heard of a young paperboy in Dumfries "who has had to abandon his deliveries due to constant attacks from the birds."

Dumfries town councillor Jack Groom said the time for talk was over, adding that it was time for action before a human was seriously hurt by the gulls.