How are your fly-swatting skills?

There’s a science to swatting flies like a pro. 

Thanks to Professor Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, your skills are about to improve. The professor has spent two decades studying flies, using slow-motion video to determine the best strategy of attack. Flies are amazing perceptive. Their field of vision is 360 and they can use different sets of legs to take off in the direction opposite the descending doom. 

Once your fly is poised for swatting, your best bet is to target about an inch and a half in front of or behind the fly. They tend to leap backward from a horizontal surface or forward on the vertical. If you prefer hand-to-hand combat without a swatter, you’ll need to come in slowly from both sides and then pull the trigger with a rapid clap just above where the fly is sitting.