In praise of the humble fruit fly

Drosophila, the hard-working fruit fly widely used in genetics research, is a lot more like us than we might care to think. Time we got to know the little pestIn a series of rooms in theFly Facility of the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University, around 5m fruit flies are kept in test tubes at any given time. They ’re stored at different temperatures to determine varying lengths of life cycle – at 25C, it’s about 10 days; at cooler temperatures as long as five weeks.Out in the wild, there is no pest quite so sympathetic to human needs as the humble fruit fly. It may have spent the summer feasting on the contents of your fruit bowl, but not until your assembled plums and peaches were starting to rot. But while gastronomic sensitivity is a characteristic to be applauded in a fly, the drosophila, to give it its official title, has more going for it than good table manners.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Medical research Genetics Science Alzheimer's Biology Insects Source Type: news