A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
A macOS app places a 3D fruit fly on your desktop, driven by a live simulation of the real FlyWire connectome.
DesktopFly renders a 3D fruit fly on macOS using a 668-neuron circuit with ~19,000 real synaptic connections from the FlyWire connectome. The fly walks, grooms, sleeps, and escapes using simulated looming-detector neurons (LC4, LPLC2) and the Giant Fiber escape command neuron, reacting to cursor movement, window events, and clicks. The brain window shows 23,210 neuron soma positions with live spike activity. The simulation runs at 1 kHz as a leaky-integrate-and-fire model. The author notes the connectome provides wiring, not physiology, and that the LIF dynamics, neurotransmitter signs, and sensory transduction are modeling choices layered on the real graph.
What commenters are saying
Commenters are split. Some praise the project as a remarkable implementation of a connectome-driven simulation, calling it a novel use of neuroscience data. Others criticize the README for AI-generated stylistic tics like the "honesty section" and hyphenated phrases, arguing it undermines credibility. Several question whether the simulation is truly meaningful, noting the connectome maps connections but not weights or physiology, and suggest the behaviors are scripted triggers rather than emergent from the circuit. A few ask for a demo video. One user claims to have ported the project to the browser.