Yale has taken to turning their fruit flies into personal (and completely ineffectual) insect slaves, controlling their movements by stimulating their brains with laser pulses.
(Via Gizmodo.)

I remember reading a book by Philip K. Dick in which a man wakes up and is bothered by flies carrying advertisments. Each fly is programmed to repeat one sentence. “Read the New York Times!” “Use Colgate Toothpaste!” etc. The man has to kill the flies before he can have breakfast in peace and quiet…