Biology Facts #1 (Fruit Fly)

Flag

funnychunk

(See more...)

random

Favorite Comment

✖ Top Next Comment

Biology Facts #1 (Fruit Fly). I guess you all know this situation: It's summer time, you want to go and enjoy some fresh fruits, you pick up an apple or an oran

I guess you all know this situation: It's summer time, you want to go and enjoy some fresh fruits, you pick up an apple or an orange and there they are. Scared up by your hand - a thousand little fruit flys.
Surely you believe these little beasts are annoying as **** , but for scientists, especially biologists, those animals are of utmost importance.

To start off: The latin name for them is Drosophila Melanogaster. They are (as you probably figured) a species of the fly.
Typically, they are around 2.5 mm long and brown/beige in colour. Their eyes are red and they have little black stripes across their asses.

(Enlarge)

So what is so special about them?
Drosophila melanogaster is a so-called model organism. Scientists test gene mutation, environmental changes, drugs and much more on these model organisms and thus try to predict what might happen to larger organisms (such as humans) under the same influences.

The fruit fly is a wonderful model organism for eukaryotes (any organism with a nucleus in their cells - plants, animals and fungi), because of it's short generation time, high count of eggs (the female can lay up to 100 per day and 2000 in a lifetime!) and their small genome; They only have 4 pairs of chromosomes (humans have 23 pairs).

The above picture shows a wild-type fly (on the right) and a fly with a mutation in its eye-developing gene (Pax6).
Pax6 is present in all animals with eyes. If that gene were to be misplaced, say in an area that is normally responsible for the development of the leg, an eye would grow in that area (you couldn't see with it, though).

Drosophila is especially interesting in the research of human diseases. About 75% of all known diseases humans might suffer from have a corresponding match in the fruit fly genome.
Famous diseases scientists are working on understanding and prohibiting with the help of these litle guys are: Parkinson, Huntington, Alzheimer, Cancer as well as Diabetes and even the aging process.

So the next time you swat them, you might want to stop and think about their good side. And then you ******* smash them again, because they are everywhere and annoying and no one is gonna come to your house to run tests on your frickin fruit flys.

- First Biology comp. Let me know if you liked it and what I should do next! -

Tags: comp | Fruit Fly | Fly | drosophila melan | biology

+429

Views:	23972
Favorited:	18
Submitted:	02/04/2015

Share On Facebook

+Favorite Subscribe to funnychunk

Comments(43):

Leave a comment Refresh Comments Show GIFs

1 2 >

[ 43 comments ]

Anonymous comments allowed.

35 comments displayed.

#9 - funnychunk [OP](02/04/2015) [-]

stickied by funnychunk

The second comp. is up: www.funnyjunk.com/Biology+facts+2+lab+rats+mice/funny-pictures/5444012/

This time about lab rats and mice.

+43

#8 - teranin ONLINE (02/04/2015) [-]

YES love me some science.

#33 to #8 - sovietsamurai (02/05/2015) [-]

What about Tardigrades?

#15 to #8 - anon (02/05/2015) [-]

Biologically immortal? What?

They can live for a long time, but they're not immortal.

#16 to #15 - boomerpyro (02/05/2015) [-]

there isn't a limit to how many times their cells can divide. they can still get hurt and heal incorrectly just like any other organism

#36 to #16 - lebrew (02/05/2015) [-]

They will also eventually get so big and hard exoskeletons that they become unable to escape them during their next molting.

#43 to #36 - boomerpyro (02/05/2015) [-]

my grandma has one in a water tank without a hard shell, it's pretty weird looking

+19

#5 - anon (02/04/2015) [-]

Oh **** , yes. Educate me more you ****** .

My life vision is that every person in the world should know as much as possible of the workings of life, particles and the way physics and biology work in general.

I'm a Mechanical Engineer, perhaps I'll post some of my own knowledge here some day.

Good job, bruh

#41 to #5 - andx (02/05/2015) [-]

Please, oh please do!!!

#22 to #5 - dontread (02/05/2015) [-]

Best type of Student Loan?

#3 - EdwardNigma

ONLINE (02/04/2015) [-]

Are you telling me fruit flies might make us immortal?
Bit of an anti-climactic thing to acquire immortality from.

#27 to #3 - Churchandtex (02/05/2015) [-]

Big things come in small packages and all that.

#7 to #3 - desacabose (02/04/2015) [-]

Behold, the secret to unlimited energy within this tiny Potato

#1 - newdevyx (02/04/2015) [-]

I've had those same ******* in my kitchen and they are freaking annoying.

#14 - ThekidsTEN (02/05/2015) [-]

We ****** with these guys in bio. We were testing effects of something (we got to come up with it) on 10 generations of fruit flies. I fed mine a slight amount of antifreeze, because they die in slightly cold weather (i did it as a joke). we put them in the bottle thing you see (we put little swabs with fly chloroform in it for the next part). we then would lay them out, separate males and females, and would expose them to the chemicals. Since they are flies, I did males with affected females, affected females and males, affected males and affected females (not even going to talk about controls, they were mandatory).
group 1 had strong fighting between males, they were the healthiest of all the groups, had the highest sex drive, but the females did not like to mate with them. Overall population decreased, but a percent were now bigger, but couldn't fly the same.
group 2 had a regular rate of mating, but a majority of the eggs were dead. Overall population had decreased, later on females became sterile. they died out
group 3 had a similar sex drive as group 1, but the females did too. they consumed the most food (I used ideal conditions for all, so they always had a ton of food). The population had exploded, despite the fact most of the eggs had died. The stubby winged flies started to become runts, and were forced off the food and females. The most fertile females preferred the stubby winged flies because they fed off the dead eggs, and not the laced food, but only after the females had eaten. Population, too many, had to microwave the experiment.

So basically I got a bunch of fruit flies drunk, and changed the mating behavior, then committed genocide to the crazy one. I couldn't release these super breeding creatures. I released all but group 4 in my math teachers room as a prank. They were still killing flies in the fall lol

#10 - lapsushominum (02/04/2015) [-]

Molecular and Cellular Biology major. Swell with pride and cytoplasm until lysis.

#25 to #10 - RipperMan (02/05/2015) [-]

get back to engineering sergals

#28 to #25 - lapsushominum (02/05/2015) [-]

Legit though man, I want to

#29 to #28 - RipperMan (02/05/2015) [-]

shark raptor wolf

guess the first step is cloning raptors.

#31 to #29 - lapsushominum (02/05/2015) [-]

I mean they're canonically aliens, so I'd more see them as a combination of many mammal characteristics and some that would have to be figured out manually. I came across something called genomics and it caught my eye because it essentially deals with assembling and fine scale analyzing entire genomes. Computer simulation programs will be very useful for this in the future if one doesn't want to go through countless failed iterations.

#35 - mion (02/05/2015) [-]

What's the difference between Alzheimer's and Chorea Huntington, actually?

#37 to #35 - funnychunk [OP](02/05/2015) [-]

Well, they are both forms of dementia, but Huntington's is an inherited disease. If your father or mother has it, you have a 50/50 chance of getting it, too. Alzheimer's is not directly inherited. Like Cancer, if your grandparents/parents have Alzheimer's, you have a higher risk of getting it than a person with no Alzheimer's in his family; But that risk is never as high as with Huntington.

Furthermore, Huntington starts around the same time as Alzheimer's (late 30s to early 40s), but it gets severe much faster. It involves involuntary motions and aggression, whereas Alzheimer's biggest symptom is the forgetting of things.

Scrubs had an episode about Huntington's once; Season 8 Episode 18. It is really close to reality, so you might want to check it out.

#21 - lionsoil (02/05/2015) [-]

#17 - backandforth ONLINE (02/05/2015) [-]

Fact number 8: Fruit flies are dicks

#6 - ajrdts ONLINE (02/04/2015) [-]

First step know your enemy, the next step, exterminate them

#40 - bulanu (02/05/2015) [-]

**bulanu used "*roll picture*"**
**bulanu rolled image**

#42 to #40 - newdevyx (02/05/2015) [-]

What is this magic ******* ?

#26 - doctorprofessornv (02/05/2015) [-]

I breed a flightless variety of melanogaster to feed my dart frog and my jumping spider. Pretty easy to mass produce, but you gotta be careful when you open the jar cause the little ******* can still hop.

#12 - MercurySenshi (02/04/2015) [-]

My mom died of Huntingtons disease. I have a 50/50 shot of getting it. I use to get letters talking about the research and learning about the fruit flies. Pic related my mom who died 4 years ago.

#39 - Sacrifice (02/05/2015) [-]

Cool Story time!
On my otherwise-boring college course we had Genetics, which was by far the most interesting lesson (when the ******* teacher showed up). We had to breed these little guys, knock them out with ether (usually drowning the poor ******* in the meantime) and then counting which ones from a starting 4 flies, had inhertited which traits; black bodies, brown bodies, full wings or vestigial wings. I ended up with 47 flies, and while I don't remember which ones had which traits, I remember finally releasing 4 of them- the only survivors.

I didn't really learn anything other than playing god is fun.

#38 - gigaidan (02/05/2015) [-]

I remember doing experiments with the Drosophila for the Biology class in Highschool. We were studying the Mendel laws and we had to breed these ******* with their mutated cousins: white eyes, no wings, etc.
It was a pain in the ass because you to prepare the food and home of the little bastards (see picture above the vitruvio fly). We had to catch the first pack of wild ones, wait for their larvae to appear and then put the parents in another place. Same with the mutations. That way we made sure the flies for the tests weren't pregnant or anything. When the new flies were born, we had to introduce a small cotton soaked with something to make the flies sleep (don't remember what they gave us, ether?). Then we had to separate females from males, and we had to do the pairings: white eye + red eye, no wings + wings, and **** . Then again, wait for larvae, separate parents, wait for flies, separate female/male, repeat... we had to do this **** for almost 4 generations... only to study the Mendel Laws.... **** was horrible...

#34 - oversoul (02/05/2015) [-]

as a biologist, I've done a lot of experiments on drosophila.

#32 - sodapops (02/05/2015) [-]

#30 - godofsteak (02/05/2015) [-]

#24 - gibroner (02/05/2015) [-]

God I got a bunch of these little ******* infesting my house a couple months ago **** was annoying as hell

1 2 >

[ 43 comments ]

Home	Top Rated Uploads
Funny GIFs	Funny WebMs
Funny Pictures	Original Content

User Rankings
Original Content	Channels
Funny Pictures	Funny Videos
Funny GIFs	YouTube Videos
Text/Links	RSS Feeds

Biology Facts #1 (Fruit Fly)

To start off: The latin name for them is Drosophila Melanogaster. They are (as you probably figured) a species of the fly. Typically, they are around 2.5 mm long and brown/beige in colour. Their eyes are red and they have little black stripes across their asses.

So what is so special about them? Drosophila melanogaster is a so-called model organism. Scientists test gene mutation, environmental changes, drugs and much more on these model organisms and thus try to predict what might happen to larger organisms (such as humans) under the same influences.

Comments(43):

Top Content in 24 Hours

To start off: The latin name for them is Drosophila Melanogaster. They are (as you probably figured) a species of the fly.
Typically, they are around 2.5 mm long and brown/beige in colour. Their eyes are red and they have little black stripes across their asses.

So what is so special about them?
Drosophila melanogaster is a so-called model organism. Scientists test gene mutation, environmental changes, drugs and much more on these model organisms and thus try to predict what might happen to larger organisms (such as humans) under the same influences.