Robofly

What is 200-million-years-old and spends 80% of its time grooming and the rest eating and copulating? Yes, Keith Richards would be an excellent guess, but I'm referring here to the common housefly. While there are 120,000 species in existence, this film explores how a team of laboratory scientists and engineers are trying to add one more: a single synthetic fly, built from scratch using computers and hi-tech materials. Of course, just getting something to flap its wings at 150 beats a second is challenging enough (let alone making it a self-propelled fighter jet), but technical difficulties are not the only problems encountered and, in the end, the scientific team admits it might cost as much as $10 each to mass produce the fly. Unfortunately, the video ends abruptly without the project completed as we're told that no one has actually produced a synthetic housefly and that the final product is still several years away. Still, this is a fascinating, offbeat look at one of the weirder science projects to come down the pike, and is therefore recommended, with reservations. Aud: J, H, C, P. (R. Ray)