Articles tagged Drosophila
(123 results)

When a noni fruit ripens, it stinks like old cheese—or even vomit. Familiar to many in the form of expensive juices sold as health supplements, this pungent fruit is engaged in a slow-motion arms race with would-be insect pests. Fruit flies are unable to feast on noni—scientific name Morinda citrifolia—because the fruit is dosed with…

As night fell, astronomer Jean Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan watched a plant’s leaves, symmetrically arranged side-by-side on a stem, clamp shut. It was 1729, and he was studying the dramatic nocturnal movement of Mimosa pudica. Strangely, he found that the plant behaved the same way even when it wasn’t exposed to natural cycles of light…

The unassuming fruit fly has paved the way for another big scientific win: on October 2nd, the Nobel Assembly awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young for their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms behind circadian rhythms. These biologists have spent their careers studying…

In the 1940s, C. H. Waddington discovered a peculiar phenomenon in fruit flies: traits could appear in response to environmental stress in an individual’s lifetime and then be passed down to future generations. Waddington proposed that this wasn’t the inheritance of acquired traits, but actually due to pre-existing genetic variation that had no effect until…

Guest post by Pamela K. Mulligan and Susanne M. Gollin. Robert C. King, Professor of genetics at Northwestern University for over four decades and a pioneer in studies of Drosophila oogenesis, passed away on June 25th. He was 89. Among scientists in the field, Bob (as he was generally known) was recognized as a world-renowned geneticist,…

Taking probiotics might be the latest health fad, but for people with inflammatory bowel diseases, the microbiome is a more serious matter. With these autoimmune diseases, the composition of the gut microbiome can have critical health consequences. In the June issue of GENETICS, Mistry et al. use fruit flies to determine whether immune system activity…

Multiparental populations (MPPs) have brought a new era in mapping complex traits, as well as new analytical challenges. To face these challenges and encourage innovation, the GSA journals launched the ongoing Multiparental Populations series in 2014. This month’s issues of GENETICS and G3 feature a bumper 16 MPP articles, timed to celebrate a new easy-to-use…

Thanks to more than a hundred years of working with Drosophila melanogaster, geneticists have many powerful tools for precisely manipulating its genes. It has also become a model system for studying speciation and molecular evolution together with the other members of the melanogaster species group: D. simulans, D. mauritiana, D. yakuba, and D. santomea. However,…

We are pleased to announce the GSA Poster Award winners from the 58th Annual Drosophila Research Conference! Undergraduate and graduate student members of the GSA were eligible for the awards, and a hard-working team of postdocs volunteered their time as judges. Congratulations to all! Undergraduate Students 1st Place: Cezary Mikoluk Institution: Penn State Berks Poster title: The…

In the genomic era, population geneticists are flooded with molecular data on the evolution of natural populations. This deluge started in 1966 as a trickle of data from protein electrophoresis studies, including the landmark GENETICS papers published by Richard Lewontin and John Hubby. As Lewontin is honored this week at the Annual Drosophila Research Conference…

Fruit fly larvae have one goal: eat as much as possible. After the tiny worm-like larvae hatch from eggs embedded into the flesh of rotting fruit, they eat their way out. After days of gorging, they find a good spot to pupate and then emerge as adults. Fruit flies cannot grow after this transformation, however,…