News tagged with fruit flies

Sex-deprived fruit flies drink more alcohol: New study could uncover answers for human addictions

Sexually deprived male fruit flies exhibit a pattern of behavior that seems ripped from the pages of a sad-sack Raymond Carver story: when female fruit flies reject their sexual advances, the males are driven ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Mar 15, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (13) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Fruit flies use alcohol as a drug to kill parasites

Fruit flies infected with a blood-borne parasite consume alcohol to self-medicate, a behavior that greatly increases their survival rate, an Emory University study finds.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 16, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

500 years ago, yeast's epic journey gave rise to lager beer

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the 15th century, when Europeans first began moving people and goods across the Atlantic, a microscopic stowaway somehow made its way to the caves and monasteries of Bavaria.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Aug 22, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Swimming led to flying, physicists say

(PhysOrg.com) -- Like a fish paddles its pectoral fins to swim through water, flying insects use the same physics laws to "paddle" through the air, say Cornell physicists.

Physics / General Physics

created May 03, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Researchers combine active proteins with material derived from fruit fly

Researchers at Rice University and Texas A&M have discovered a way to pattern active proteins into bio-friendly fibers. The "eureka" moment came about because somebody forgot to clean up the lab one night.

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Apr 20, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Fruit flies can detect heavy hydrogen: study

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study by researchers in Greece and the US has found that fruit flies can discriminate between normal and heavy hydrogen (deuterium) isotopes, which adds weight to a new theory of how ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Feb 16, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (16) | comments 14 | with audio podcast report

Fruit fly nervous system provides new solution to fundamental computer network problem

(PhysOrg.com) -- The fruit fly has evolved a method for arranging the tiny, hair-like structures it uses to feel and hear the world that's so efficient a team of scientists in Israel and at Carnegie Mellon ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Jan 13, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (14) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Fruit fly larvae detect light via body's network of photoreceptors

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research in the U.S. has discovered that fruit fly larvae have a series of photoreceptors covering the body that can detect light even when their primitive "eyes" are covered or removed.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 12, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Complexity not so costly after all, analysis shows

The more complex a plant or animal, the more difficulty it should have adapting to changes in the environment. That's been a maxim of evolutionary theory since biologist Ronald Fisher put forth the idea in 1930.

Biology / Evolution

created Sep 27, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (8) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

First brain recordings from behaving fruit flies obtained (w/ Video)

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have obtained the first recordings of brain-cell activity in an actively flying fruit fly.

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Feb 14, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Pivotal role for proteins -- from helping turn carbs into energy to causing devastating disease

Research into how carbohydrates are converted into energy has led to a surprising discovery with implications for the treatment of a perplexing and potentially fatal neuromuscular disorder and possibly even cancer and heart ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Insect glands may illuminate human fertilization process

Insect glands are responsible for producing a host of secretions that allow bees to sting and ants to lay down trails to and from their nests. New research from Carnegie scientists focuses on secretions from glands in the ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 03, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Battle of the sexes offers evolutionary insights

In a paper published May 3, in the journal Evolution, University of Cincinnati graduate student Karl Grieshop and Michal Polak, associate professor of biological sciences at UC, examine the role of genita ...

Biology / Evolution

created May 03, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Jarid2 may break the Polycomb silence

Historically, fly and human Polycomb proteins were considered textbook exemplars of transcriptional repressors, or proteins that silence the process by which DNA gives rise to new proteins. Now, work by a ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Apr 30, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Locked down, RNA editing yields odd fly behavior

Because a function of RNA is to be translated as the genetic instructions for the protein-making machinery of cells, RNA editing is the body's way of fine-tuning the proteins it produces, allowing us to adapt. The enzyme ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Apr 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Tephritidae

Bactrocera Ceratitis Paracantha Rhagoletis Tephritis Urophora Euaresta Xyphosia hundreds more

Tephritidae is one of two fly families referred to as "fruit flies". Tephritidae does not include the biological model organisms of the genus Drosophila, which is often called the "common fruit fly". Drosophila is, instead, the type genus of the second "fruit fly" family, Drosophilidae. There are nearly 5,000 described species of tephritid fruit fly, categorized in almost 500 genera. Description, recategorization, and genetic analysis are constantly changing the taxonomy of this family. To distinguish them from the Drosophilidae, the Tephritidae are sometimes called peacock flies.

Tephritid fruit flies are of major importance in agriculture. Some have negative effects, some positive. Various species of fruit fly cause damage to fruit and other plant crops. The genus Bactrocera is of worldwide notoriety for its destructive impact on agriculture. The olive fruit fly (B. oleae), for example, feeds on only one plant: the wild or commercially cultivated olive. It has the capacity to ruin 100% of an olive crop by damaging the fruit. On the other hand, some fruit flies are used as agents of biological control, thereby reducing the populations of pest species. Several species of the fruit fly genus Urophora are questionable in their effectiveness as control agents against rangeland-destroying noxious weeds such as starthistles and knapweeds.

Most fruit flies lay their eggs in plant tissues, where the larvae find their first food upon emerging. The adults usually have a very short lifespan. Some live for less than a week.

Fruit flies use an open circulatory system as their cardiovascular system.

Their behavioral ecology is of great interest to biologists. Some fruit flies have extensive mating rituals or territorial displays. Many are brightly colored and visually showy. Some fruit flies show Batesian mimicry, bearing the colors and markings of dangerous insects such as wasps because it helps the fruit flies to avoid predators; the flies, of course, lack stingers.

For more information about Tephritidae, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Related topics: genes , nerve cells , cells , protein , brain