HWN Suggests

In praise of the humble fruit fly, leading the way on cancer research

Cancer research is a global effort involving millions of people, and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster – which has been helping our understanding of the disease for decades – is still illuminating the most fundamental part of this process: the beginning... More than half the human disease genes have an equivalent in Drosophila. This is why Drosophila have been used for over a century to investigate the fundamental mechanisms of inheritance and have turned out to be a great tool for understanding the function of human genes.

read full article

Featured

  Vinegar Fly

The Vinegar Fly is not actually a fruit fly as it does not feed on fruit directly, just the yeasts associated with rotting fruit. The name 'fruit fly' is more correctly applied to flies in the family Tephritidae.The larvae feed on the bacteria and yeast found in rotting fruit. The Vinegar Fly is commonly found in genetics laboratories around the world. This is probably the most studied of all animals (besides humans) and has contributed greatly to our understanding of genetics. Its short life cycle of only a couple of weeks makes it ideal for genetic research.

  Why the flies flurrying around your fruit bowl are not fruit flies – and how to get rid of them

Most of us are familiar with the pesky little flies that hover around fruit bowls and food scraps or get tipsy floating in a glass of beer or wine. What is less commonly known is that these little bugs are NOT fruit flies: they’re vinegar flies (Drosophila melanogaster), otherwise known as ferment flies. Some people may not even recognise “true” fruit flies – the ones that decimate orchards...

 Can fruit flies make you sick?

Fruit flies themselves are not associated with any specific illness However, there are some concerns about them carrying bacteria from one place to another and contaminating food with infectious microorganisms such as salmonella, E. coli, and listeria.

 The Mighty Fruit Fly

Fruit flies can be a major nuisance. How can you help but be annoyed when they hover in swarms over fruits, around picnics, and in garbage? But before you give them a swat, take a moment to be thankful for the common fruit fly. These pests have given scientists surprising insights into how the human body works.

Articles of Interest

Consider the Fruit Fly

Modern genetics would not be possible without the humble fruit fly.

How close are you to a fruit fly?

Fruit flies are used by research groups throughout Cambridge to learn more about how genes determine development. That’s because, despite looking remarkably dissimilar to us, Drosophila have much the same fundamental biological make-up as humans. Significantly for medical scientists, they share 75% of the genes that cause disease in the human population.

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 pest.

Speaking up for the annoying fruit fly

Fruit flies can be truly annoying when they are buzzing around your living room or landing in your wine. But we have much to thank these tiny nuisances for – they revolutionised biological and medical science.

A fruit fly has landed in your wine – is it OK to drink?

Unless you are germ-phobic, I would suggest removing the fly and drinking the wine. If you want the extra protein, you could even swallow the fly. The fruit fly is unlikely to change the taste of the wine, even if there are several of them. Your digestive system will simply process the fly like any other protein. Salud!

Another Nobel Prize for the Fruit Fly

This simple fly is both cost- and time-efficient for laboratory studies, and it has a genetic and physiological makeup that is incredibly similar to our own. “Am not I/A fly like thee?/Or art thou not/A man like me?” asked William Blake. We now know that the answer, to a surprising extent, is yes. Learning about human health from fruit flies may sound like a stretch — indeed, Sarah Palin mocked it during the 2008 presidential campaign — but it exemplifies a type of scientific inquiry called “basic research.” Also called “fundamental” or “pure” research (to forestall the misunderstanding that it is simplistic), basic research promotes curiosity-based exploration of the world, in contrast to “applied research” that is undertaken in an attempt to deliver a solution to a practical problem at hand.

Cheers! Fruit Flies Drink To Their Health, Literally

Self-medicating exists all over the animal kingdom. Insects, birds and primates all have been known to eat special plants to rid themselves of parasites or other ailments. But, says Schlenke, this is the only situation that he knows of that has critters using alcohol as a medicine.

Do Not Allow Even One Fruit Fly Into Your Kitchen Compost

Collecting food scraps in your kitchen can invite insect invaders. But there are plenty of ways to outsmart them.

Explore This Exquisitely Detailed 3D Brain

These little bugs have grooming rituals and complicated courtship dances. They can learn and recall their environment. And amazingly, some of the brain structures behind these behaviors are similar to those in other animals—including humans.

Focusing on Fruit Flies, Curiosity Takes Flight

To hear Michael Dickinson tell it, there is nothing in the world quite as wonderful as a fruit fly. And it’s not because the fly is one of the most important laboratory animals in the history of biology, often used as a simple model for human genetics or neuroscience. “I don’t think they’re a simple model of anything,” he says. “If flies are a great model, they’re a great model for flies.

Fruit Flies and Food Safety

Although the fruit fly (one of the many types of small flies) has historically been considered a nuisance pest, recent research proves that fruit flies contaminate food with bacteria carried from unsanitary surfaces. This puts restaurants and food retail businesses at risk if they don't have a fly control program in place.

Fruit Flies Are Essential to Science. So Are the Workers Who Keep Them Alive

Sustaining the world’s biggest Drosophila collection during the pandemic has been a challenge, but the people in Indiana who supply the insects to labs around the world stay dedicated to the task.

Fruit Flies First Began Feeding on Our Fresh Produce About 10,000 Years Ago

It turns out the insects love marula fruit found in south-central Africa, which attracted them to human caves.

Fruit Flies In The Fountain Of Youth

Fruit flies are some of scientists’ favorite subjects for genetic research. In this case, copies of a gene known to rid human cells of the damaging products of metabolism were inserted into the cells that control fruit-fly movement. Result: the life-span of the flies (normally about 80 days) was extended by as much as a month. All this, the researchers say, suggests “a possible strategy” for reducing the ravages of aging in other species– including humans.

Fruit flies know how to sniff out antioxidants

The next time you start loading up on food rich in antioxidants at the grocery store, know that you are not alone in the animal world. Other animals such as birds and fruit flies are health conscious too, and make healthy choices about their food. In fact, according to new research from the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology in Germany, fruit flies are drawn to rotting bananas by the enticing smell of antioxidants.

Fruit Flies, Vinegar Flies—Drosophilidae spp.

Vinegar flies are so named because of their attraction to the sour odor of fermentation. They are also called fruit flies or pomace flies. They are nuisance pests in homes, restaurants, grocery stores and any location with fermenting or rotting vegetative matter, where they often build up large populations. They pose little threat to people, although they do transmit sour rot bacteria, which aids in the decay of exposed fruit.

Here’s how you can get rid of fruit flies, and why scientists are so fond of them

As a researcher who works on fruit flies, I often get asked how to get them out of someone's kitchen. This happens to fly researchers often enough that we sit around at fly conferences (these actually exist) and complain about getting asked this question. Meanwhile, we watch the same fruit flies buzz around our beers instead of discussing pithy and insightful questions about the research that we’re pursuing. But I get it: Fruit flies are annoying. So, fine, here’s how we get rid of them in my lab: We build a trap. It’s not perfect, but it’s okay.

How To Get Rid Of Fruit Flies

Fruit flies are probably some of the most annoying unwanted household pests. They always seem to be around too, no matter the time of year or how clean your home is. They get their name from their obsession with over-ripening or rotting fruit. When they’re not hovering around your fruit bowl, you’ll find them in and around garbage cans.

How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies, Once and for All

Try these fast and easy DIY trap-and-kill methods. You probably have the supplies in your home pantry.

Just Like Humans, Lonely Fruit Flies Eat More, Sleep Less

The insects are hardwired to consume lots of food and avoid rest as a way of coping with loneliness.

Long Live the Fruit Flies!

Fruit flies with a mutation in one copy of a gene that plays a role in energy metabolism live almost twice as long as their wild type cousins, according to a new study. Stephen L. Helfand and colleagues from the University of Connecticut appropriately named the gene Indy for "I¿m not dead yet"--a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Pass The Prozac: Fruit Flies Get Depressed, Too

The discovery of depression-like behavior in insects shows depression has deep roots in the animal kingdom.

Seeing dead fruit flies is bad for the health of fruit flies – and neuroscientists have identified the exact brain cells responsible

I have used fruit flies, specifically Drosophila melanogaster, for more than 15 years to better understand how sensory perception affects aging. Recently my work has focused on the role the brain plays in aging, looking at how death perception, or when fruit flies perceive other dead fruit flies, affects their life span.

Seeking Elixir of Life, a Scientist Studies Fruit Flies

A research lab at a University of California campus has a big ambition—to extend the number of years people live disease-free. The animal model it uses for its experiments is decidedly smaller: the tiny fruit fly.

Sick And Tired? Scientists Find Protein That Puts Flies To Sleep And Fights Infection

Sehgal is quick to point out the her team couldn't find a gene like nemuri in mammals, so the relevance of this work to humans remains to be explored. Still, she says that antimicrobial proteins abound in mammals, and many are known to interact with molecules that are linked with sleep regulation.

Swapping genes can help fruit flies regenerate cells

While humans won’t be regenerating entire limbs like sea stars, some new genetic work with fruit flies has yielded some surprising results. A team from the University of Tokyo found that certain genes from simple organisms that help them regenerate body parts and tissues can be transferred into other animals.

The Downside of Eating Lots of Fruit: Ugh, Fruit Flies--Here's How to Get Rid of Them Safely

I eat a lot of fruit--great for health, yes, but here's the annoying thing that I have to deal with every summer in my kitchen near the fruit bowl: fruit flies! Sure, they're harmless, and they don't bite, but who wants flies--of any kind--in their kitchen? I recently found a genius trick to keep them under control.

Thinking Outside The Tank: Why This Startup Thinks Fruit Flies Will Solve Synbio’s Scale-Up Problem

When most people look at fruit flies they see tiny specks that flock to our slightly overripe fruit and have a unique talent to stick themselves into the corners of our eyes. They don’t see a mini bioreactor capable of producing life-saving therapeutic proteins. But Matt Anderson-Baron isn’t most people.

Vinegar vs. fruit flies: Unveiling the truth with Dr. Killigan's expertise

Nature's fermenting fruits are a siren song to fruit flies, a call that vinegar mimics quite adeptly. However, let's not be fooled; vinegar's role is that of an attractant, not an assassin. It draws these pests in, but there it stops. This is a crucial point to understand in our quest to outwit and outmaneuver fruit fly infestations. In dissecting the intricacies of the fermentation process and fruit fly behavior, it becomes clear that while vinegar is a powerful lure, it stops short of being a fruit fly slayer. Its strength lies in attraction, making it a valuable ally in our broader strategy against these pests, but it's not the ultimate weapon in our arsenal.

When And Where Fruit Flies First Bugged Humans

The next time you swat a fruit fly in your kitchen, take heart from the fact that people have apparently been struggling with these fly infestations for around 10,000 years. A study published Thursday suggests Drosophila melanogaster first shacked up with humans when the insects flew into the elaborately painted caves of ancient people living in southern Africa.

Why fruit flies keep invading your home – and expert hack to stop them

Ann advises against fruit fly traps, claiming they “don’t work” as they merely attract an influx of the pests. The solution? Her method involves filling your sink with piping hot, soapy water to “clean everything thoroughly until you find what’s attracting them” whether it’s a rogue droplet of fruit juice behind the bin or your in-house compost bin.

You Asked: Do Fruit Flies Come From Inside Fruit?

These insects tend to show up in large numbers in late summer and early fall because it’s the harvest season, and America is filled with the fruits of the earth. With those fruits come fruit flies. And that’s a good thing, Courtney stresses. “They’re not disease spreading, they’re just annoying,” he says. Also, they’re one of many insects that feed on decomposing food. We’d all be neck deep in rotting banana peels and apple cores without them.