WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Fruit Flies, Why? 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:06.840 Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:11.880 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's buzzing around out there somewhere. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.560 I'm sorry, uh, and this is short stuff. Like I 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.880 think I said, yeah, the seats fly something that if 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:22.520 if you took high school biology, you talked about these 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.759 little fellows, the what fly, the CTS fly. I thought 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.640 we were talking about fruit flies. Isn't that the CTS fly? 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.920 I don't think so. Is that different? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.440 I always thought that CTS fly was the same thing 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.599 as the fruit fly. Now no, because I think the 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.280 tt C fly is that how you say it? Um 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:46.400 gives like passes around dangai fever. Oh well, just never mind, then, everybody, 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.000 what we're really talking about is the fruit fly a 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.600 k a. The dress off ala. And it's impossible to 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.640 read this next word without reading it like like this, Uh, 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:04.680 Melano gangster, But it's not gangster, unfortunately, it's Milano Gaster. Yeah. 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.600 Most people call him Josaphila though. Oh I've always heard 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.200 droop now, oh man, I don't know now that you 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.440 say that. I've never heard it out loud. I've always 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.560 seen it in writing. So when you said most people 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.520 say it that way, you just lied. So what I 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.680 mean is, oh my gosh, yeah, I totally just did. 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.360 Thank you for calling me out for that, just in 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.520 the lying machine, apparently because I didn't realize that they're 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.520 Milano gangsters no matter what. Okay, so we're talking, let's 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.560 just call him fruit flies. How about that flies? But 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:40.560 there is a bunch and by the way, t flies 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.280 are large biting fly, so there's definitely not these. Um. 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.039 Now we have to do a short stuff on those guys. 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:51.640 Thanks Chuck. Literally, uh, probably one eighth of the show 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:57.240 is now misinformation. So, um, fruit flies specifically, how did 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.080 you say it? Drosophila That's what I said. It's much 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.200 more beautiful than what I said, so I'm gonna go 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.120 with that too. You know, most people say Drosophila um. 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.760 Those particular kinds of fruit flies, Drosophila melang Melana gaster. 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.640 They are um widely used in scientific experiments, and it 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.160 turns out it's a lot of people know that we 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:23.840 use fruit flies and experiments. They've actually bestowed a tremendous 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.440 amount of information to us humans um through their biology, 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.600 through their genetics, through the very the very the very existence. 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.160 We owe a great debt to them scientifically because a 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:40.080 lot of them have been asked to sacrifice their lives 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.839 in the for the furtherance of human knowledge. Yeah, and 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.080 there's a bunch of reasons, which we're gonna get to 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.400 kind of here and there in a sec But you 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:55.000 dug up this kind of interesting bit from February v 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.120 two rocket full to the brim, well not full to 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.000 the brim, but a lot of fruit flies were loaded 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.519 up on this thing, traveled sixty seven miles up into 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.519 the air, which is technically uh an altitude, which is 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.519 one mile into actual space according to NASA. And they 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.040 were the very first animals to go into space. Yeah, 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.959 and they actually survived that trip um and not one 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.840 of like they were the first animal and they were 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.519 they were like a test animal to see. Scientists were like, well, 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:30.360 no one's ever been to space. We have no idea 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:32.560 what happens out there. Maybe these things are gonna come 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.440 back all mutated and everything. And when they didn't, when 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.360 they actually survived the flight and the re entry um, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.080 they said, oh, well, let's start sending more larger animals 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.160 up and they did, and eventually we ended up on 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.680 humans and that's what we're sending up these days. That's right. 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.800 But it was very instructive to see those flies come 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:55.480 back without you know, seven eyeballs or or twice the 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:59.280 size or ten times the size they were. They were fine, 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.000 they didn't hulk out. Yeah. And by that yeah, no 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:06.920 purple ripped pants to be found. Um by that time bye. 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.400 They had actually been used in biological studies for well 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:15.000 over a decade UM. In the nineteen thirties, in particular, 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:20.960 they basically helped establish the field of modern genetics. UM. 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:26.359 A guy uh named um Morgan Thomas Hunt Morgan basically 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:31.599 showed that inheritance has passed along via chromosomes using a 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.080 fruit fly study, and he did it in months rather 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.919 than years that his other fellow early geneticists took to 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.320 to prove their studies and actually end up winning a 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.960 Nobel Prize for it. And in fact, at least five 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:49.800 people have won Nobel Prizes from directly working with fruit flies. Yeah, 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.120 I mean, if you want a Nobel prize, not a 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.040 bad place to start, that's right, Uh. And the reason why, 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:57.920 or maybe we should take a break and then talk 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.479 about some of the reasons why, right, after this. Yes, 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.279 all right. The reasons why fruit flies are really great 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.240 are multifold. One of the reasons if you're going to 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:33.479 study genetics, what you need to study is generations, and 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:37.080 fruit flies are really quick. They can create a new 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.719 generation in about two weeks, so that means you can 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.719 study generation after generation in short order. Uh. They are 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.400 very easy to breed in the lab. Um, they're small, 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.919 they don't put up much of a fussy, easy to 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.920 care for. Yeah, they just want a little cornstarch and 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.560 sugar soup and they're happy. Yeah little fruit maybe yeah, um, yeah, 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.240 you don't even have to give them fruit. That's really 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.240 corn Starch and sugar soup is fine with them. But yeah, ultimately, 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.080 I'm sure they prefer the real deal, you know. But 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.880 if they're being raised in a lab their entire life 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.520 and countless generations that they of their lineage before them 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.480 have been raised in a lab, they'll take the corn 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.640 starch and sugar soup if that's all they can get. Right. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.680 But why, why, my friend, if you're going to study 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.200 human genetics, would would you even bother looking at a 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.599 fruit fly? Well that's a great question, Chuck, And the 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.640 answer to it is that we share a surprising number 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:38.200 of genes with fruit flies. Um. Apparently eight thousand of 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.880 our twenty thousand to twenty five thousand genes are analogous 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:46.599 to fruit fly genes. Yeah, so if you study those 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.720 genes and fruit flies, you can extrapolate to humans. You know, 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.120 what they do, what happens when you poke them with 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.440 a whatever, Um, what happens if you shine a light 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.440 on them, if you're doing an optogenetic study. Um. That 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.080 there's a lot of questions that we've answered through genetics 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:08.039 because of that benefit of having similar genes. And apparently 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:12.160 sev of the genes known to cause diseases in humans 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.800 are are are shared between humans and fruit flies too. 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.000 It's so cool. Another cool thing you can do if 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.440 you want to say, oh, I don't know, Like, what 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.760 if you live in the Arctic and you're always or 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:31.080 the greater northern climates of Canada and you're just basically 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:32.640 cold all the time. What is that going to do 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.440 to your gene activity in your metabolism. Well, let's put 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.120 two thousand fruit flies in a in a chamber and 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.480 make it super cold all the time and look at 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.680 them and see what happens. You can get a large 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.280 population study very very easily because these little fellas are 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.720 so tiny. Yeah. They also share, in addition to genes, 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.720 a lot of the same biochemical pathways that humans have 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.920 to UM. One example I saw is that they don't 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.679 actually get Alzheimer's, but they have all of the same 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:09.440 pathways and and brain structures that Alzheimer's um befalls in humans. 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.160 So we can study those pathways and try to treat 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.760 Alzheimer's just by looking at UM these these pathways and 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.560 these brain structures in fruit flies. Yeah. I also thought 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.720 it was funny when you look at the downside of 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.920 fruit flies. Aside from just some of the genetic components, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.280 the biggest downside, it seems like, is that their fruit 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.439 flies and fruit flies are super annoying. They really are 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.800 very annoying. Um there apparently what's called cosmopolitan species. So 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.440 wherever humans are, they're going to be there too. And 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.439 the reason why is apparently because we live in conditions 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.440 that they find very suitable, like moderate temperatures that are 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.120 fairly stable, and we like fruit too, and sometimes we 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.760 leave our fruit out and it gets a little past ripe, 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.040 and the fruit flies say thank you, sir or madam 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.960 they doff their little top hat, um, click their heels 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.120 together with their spats, and they go to town on 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.280 that juicy banana, which I guess if you have a 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.960 juicy banana you want to throw that now. Yeah, but 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:15.880 did you see that listener mail by the way, about 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:20.400 the banana bread banana. Someone emailed about something you said, 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.080 and I said that I think one of the big 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.160 reasons too, is because they get really really sweet. Mh 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.840 is why you want to use an old banana. But anyway, 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.640 the fruit flies love all that stuff. So if you 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.600 live near a dumpster, unfortunately for you, which I did 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.080 in my apartment in Los Angeles, had a dumpster behind 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:44.439 my apartment, which is where I found my cat Luran, 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:49.079 by the way, it wasn't all that Or if you compost, 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.079 God help you. Um it's a great thing to do. 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.040 But you're going to be dealing with some fruit flies, 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.360 you are. And again, I mean, there's really not a 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.560 lot besides annoyance that fruit flies vide humans like. They 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:06.280 don't transfer or transmit communicable diseases and not a disease vector. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.079 And on the on the flip side of that, they've 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:15.080 actually stood in as models for um disease carrying insects, 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:19.080 Like we know a lot about how mosquitoes transmit disease 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:24.920 by studying fruit flies as models. So they basically annoy us. 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.360 But they've furthered our, understanding and medicine in countless ways. 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.920 And yet we're still like, yeah, but they're annoying, you 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.199 know what I mean? Yeah, you know that's so human 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.400 it is. But they're not like that rat, the c 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:45.240 fly now dan gay fever spreading mofo uh. And apparently 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.800 if you you know, if you do compost like inside 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:50.600 and you have a even if you have a thing 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.520 with the lid, they're gonna gather around. You can set 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.400 up a little little vinegar jar like a canning jar 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.320 with vinegar at the bottom, uh, and then a top 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.520 made of plastic wrap with some holes in there, and 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.640 you can trap them and even remove them safely. I 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.800 think if you want, yeah, just throw them out in 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.680 the yard and say, go find a juicy banana because 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.160 I don't want it. Although it is true you can 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.840 use those for banana bread. I forgot. Yeah, so fruit 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:17.800 flyes ahoy. The next time you see a fruit fly, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.640 don't swat at it, say thank you fruit fly. Your 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.320 kind has been very beneficent to my kind and I 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:29.240 appreciate it. That's right and said since Chuck said that's 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:35.640 right and tapped his watch, Short Stuff is out. Stuff 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:37.760 you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios How 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.800 Stuff Works. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.680 iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:44.520 your favorite shows.