Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Despite their bee-like appearance, hoverflies are all buzz, no bite. The harmless insects, more closely related to midges than wasps, imitate their distant stinging cousins with stripes, high contrast colors, and narrow waists. In theory, the "flies in wasps' clothing" use this strategy to ward off would-be predators, without having to pay the cost of evolving venom and an appendage to inject it. The quality of hoverfly mimicry can vary– from detailed disguises to the insect equivalent of slapping on a pair of cat ears for a Halloween party.

What's the best way to teach a robot or drone to see in 3D? Quite possibly, the answer is to teach it to think like an insect. A praying mantis, to be more specific. A team at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University recently studied the stereoscopic vision of the praying mantis and found that its approach to depth perception is quite different than ours. And what do you need to study praying mantises' 3D vision? The team, led by behavioral ecologist Dr. Vivek Nityananda, discovered that mantis 3D vision works differently from all previously known forms of biological 3D vision.

Scientists have gained new insight into the way praying mantises see the world, and this knowledge could potentially open up new avenues for computer vision. Unlike other insects, praying mantises have a pair of large, forward-facing eyes. Humans and other primates use this kind of stereo sight setup to compare two slightly different viewpoints in order to gauge depth. However, it seems that praying mantises see things differently than we do. Using beeswax as an adhesive, a team led by Vivek Nityananda at the University of Newcastle affixed lenses to praying mantises' faces, being careful not to cause injury. One lens was green and the other was blue, a setup that allowed the scientists to control what each eye could see.

PARIS – Praying mantises sporting tiny 3-D glasses -- held in place with beeswax -- have revealed a new kind of "stereo" vision that may help improve robot sight, researchers said Thursday. Sporting two teardrop-shaped, light-filtering lenses in lab experiments, the insects lashed out at special 3-D film images of tempting prey, a team of scientists said. Scientists then observed reactions to more complex images, and learned that mantis vision works very differently from ours. Humans can naturally judge depth when shown a still image. However, in mantises, such 3-D perception activates when there is movement.

Praying mantises sporting tiny 3D glasses that were held in place with beeswax have revealed a new kind of'stereo' vision that may help improve robot sight. With two teardrop-shaped, light-filtering lenses perched on their heads, the insects lashed out at images of tempting prey in a special 3D film, a team of scientists said. Currently robot algorithms for sight require a lot of computing power. However, if scientists could replicate the way mantis sight detects depth they could create more lightweight robots with better 3D vision. Praying mantises sporting tiny 3D glasses that were held in place with beeswax have revealed a new kind of'stereo' vision that may help improve robot sight Also known as stereopsis, 3D or stereo vision helps humans and other creatures determine the distances to objects we see.