NELSPRUIT – Strange-looking boxes hanging from trees and other areas recently popped up like mushrooms all across the city. These yellow boxes caused quite a stir and Nelspruiters speculated about whether it could be a new way for criminals to mark your house.
However it is nothing as sinister as these boxes are simply there to do a new type of research on the lowly fruit fly.
Drosophila Melanogaster, the common vinegar or fruit fly, is a most useful nuisance. Put out a bowl of fruit such as grapes or bananas, and within moments, from out of nowhere are hovering little flies.
Larvae of the fruit fly produce much saliva. That saliva possess enormous genes, hundreds of times thicker than normal, so by means of the staining process, they are easy to see and to study.
Another reason fruit flies are used is because they have such a short life span and reproduction rate. Females are quite prolific, laying the hundreds of eggs at a time, and a generation of fruit flies can be studied in a little over two weeks. This enables genetic modifications to be rapidly evaluated.
Read more about this research project in the April edition of Nelspruit Post‘s sister publication AgriECO.
