Oh my god I'm totally buggin'
Mice and rats have always gotten the credit for being part of great scientific research, but there is another creature that deserves praise.
This creature has 750 lenses per eyeball and has approximately 100,000 to 200,000 neurons. We are, of course, referring to the Drosophila Melanogaster.
Aka fruit flies.
From being the first living creature to go to space to being the key to unravelling the secrets of our genetics; fruit flies have been at the forefront. With female fruit flies living about one or two months to males living typically just over a month, tracking their genetic evolution over generations is substantially easier. Not to mention, they’re cheap, easy to feed and will likely always be available. It is entirely possible that fruit flies could outlive humans.
Fruit flies were launched into the ether on February 20th, 1947 in a rocket the Americans seized from the Nazis at the end of World War II. The Americans realized the potential of the V-2 ballistic missiles they took and had long wanted to explore space; these missiles posed the perfect opportunity. However, with fears of cosmic radiation, scientists started by sending seeds and plants to research afterwards to look for any damage. With the tests looking *fruitful* they needed something living to take a test drive.
The point where space is defined by NASA is at 66 miles altitude- the fruit flies went up to 67 miles altitude. It barely counts as space, but it still counts! After hitting the landmark of being the first living creature to enter space, they were expelled from the vessel in a capsule and parachuted down to the researchers' relief to find the fruit flies were not only alive, but their genetic code was unharmed.
Why was it exciting that the genetic code of the fruit flies was normal? Because just like the researchers who used fruit flies to learn about the dynamics of the genetic evolution of living species, these space scientists knew fruit flies share 75% of genes that cause disease in humans; making them an ideal candidate for research since the early 20th Century. So, if the fruit flies' genetic code was okay in space, there was a good chance that humans would be okay too.
What also made fruit flies a great subject for scientific study is that they have ‘polytene’ chromosomes, meaning they are oversized chromosomes and have barcode-like patterns that are easy to identify and manipulate.
Overall, those pests who hover over your hors d'oeuvres at a party or flutter in your trash bin have played a major role in the science that shapes our world. So much so that six Nobel prize winners attribute fruit flies to being part of their successful research.
Thanks, fruit flies!
