Fruit Fly Nervous System Provides New Solution To Fundamental Computer Network Problem - Carnegie Mellon University

Jan. 13: Fruit Fly Nervous System Provides New Solution To Fundamental Computer Network Problem - Carnegie Mellon University: During the larval and pupal stages of a fly's development, the nervous system also uses a probabilistic method to select the cells that will become SOPs. In the fly, however, the cells have no information about how they are connected to each other. As various cells self-select themselves as SOPs, they send out chemical signals to neighboring cells that inhibit those cells from also becoming SOPs. This process continues for three hours, until all of the cells are either SOPs or are neighbors to an SOP, and the fly emerges from the pupal stage.

In the fly, Bar-Joseph noted, the probability that any cell will self-select increases not as a function of connections, as in the typical MIS algorithm for computer networks, but as a function of time. The method does not require advance knowledge of how the cells are arranged. The communication between cells is as simple as can be.