The key to better computer algorithms might be found in the brains of fruit flies, researchers say.
Computers are always doing searches that involve comparing similar things. Think about when you go on YouTube to listen to Coldplay and it recommends a song by Radiohead. (This is called a “similarity search.”) Fruit flies do a version of this to survive: if they learned that the smell of an orange indicates food, they will know in the future that a similar smell is also food they can eat. In a study published today in the journal Science, scientists found that the way their brains do this is different from how most computer algorithms do it — and by using the fly method, we can make our computer programs better.
Imagine your computer is...
