GoKawiilOpen-source project simulates 12 fruit fly brains from real connectome data in one physics scene
A Show HN project called Fly.exe runs a Drosophila brain simulator built from the released male central nervous system connectome — 165,122 neurons and over 25 million synaptic connections — driving a physical fly body model in real time on a single GPU. The demo scales this to twelve independent fly bodies sharing one MuJoCo physics scene, each executing its own copy of the full neural network and interacting through a simplified, analytic form of vision rather than rendered images.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
This is a rare public demonstration of turning a large-scale, real biological connectome into a working, embodied simulation rather than just a static wiring diagram, showing how far open neuroscience datasets can be pushed into interactive tools. The project's careful framing of what it does not claim — no full biological emulation, no digital twin — highlights the current limits of connectome-based simulation and the importance of transparency as such projects proliferate.
- Fly.exe simulates the traced portion of the male fruit fly connectome (165,122 neurons, 25.5 million edges) driving a physical body in real time.
- Twelve independent fly simulations share one physics scene and interact via simplified, non-visual 'vision' based on exact object position and size rather than rendered pixels.
- The creators explicitly disclaim that this is a complete biological emulation or digital twin, documenting their modeling choices and trade-offs in accompanying design records.
Source: github.com, 2026-09-14
Published there as: “Show HN: Fly.exe – An EON systems like virtual fruit fly uploaded to computer”
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