26th May & 27th May 2020
CUBE Room Webinar (A short summary)
While discussing in the webinar for the past 2 days,
@saswathy679 and many others were believing or claiming that temperature might be a factor that gave a delayed life cycle.
So, the story goes like this…
@saswathy679 as a very good or a very thriving culture which started from 6th May.
Within 8 days, i.e. on the 8th day (14/05/2020), new generation flies ecloded from the pupae.
After 4 days i.e. on 18th of May, another set of media was made and the newly emerged as well as the parent flies from the 6th May bottle were transferred into the newly prepared 18th May media bottle.
In this 18th May TRSV media bottle, Aswathy could not locate any larvae for almost 7 days i.e. from 19th May to 25th May…but on 26th May, small and big larvae could be seen by @saswathy679 as a very good or a very thriving culture which started from 6th May.
Within 8 days, i.e. on the 8th day (14/05/2020), new generation flies ecloded from the pupae.
After 4 days i.e. on 18th of May, another set of media was made and the newly emerged as well as the parent flies from the 6th May bottle were transferred into the newly prepared 18th May media bottle.
In this 18th May TRSV media bottle, Aswathy could not locate any larvae for almost 7 days i.e. from 19th May to 25th May…but on 26th May, small and big larvae could be seen by @saswathy679 i.e. on the 8th day!
During the webinar,
Aswathy claimed that temperature might be the factor responsible for this delay.
When asked what was the temperature, it was told that it’s 27°C.
For me, and @yash_sheregare ,
We had 2 reasons for ruling out the factor of temperature!
27°C is normal (lab temperature) where we used to culture our fruit flies, the standard as well as the native single lines. And within 8 days we used to get the next generation flies.
Aswathy herself got a thriving culture in the same place at the same location using the same media (without making any changes) few days back…not even a month old story…
And I looked for the temperature of those days.
There isn’t much drastic difference in the temperature that would affect the life cycle of fruit flies giving a delayed cycle.
If you ask me what was the temperature during those days.
I’m giving a reference along with the data of the temperature on all those days from 6th May to 16th May (the bottle which had a thriving culture) and from 17th May to 25th May (the newly made same type of media which was claimed to show a delayed life cycle of almost 7 days!!)
Reference: https://www.accuweather.com/en/in/thrissur/188812/may-weather/188812
May
6th - 34°/24° C
7th - 34°/22° C
8th - 32°/26° C
9th - 33°/25° C
10th - 33°/25° C
11th - 33°/25° C
12th - 33°/26° C
13th - 33°/26° C
14th - 34°/25° C
15th - 33°/26° C
16th - 32°/25° C
17th - 33°/26° C
18th - 29°/25° C
19th - 31°/25° C
20th - 33°/24° C
21st - 31°/28° C
22nd - 32°/25° C
23rd - 33°/29° C
24th - 33°/27° C
25th - 33°/25° C
@saswathy679 prepared media on 17th May too…
But, I emphasized more on 18th media as that was a replica of the media made on 6th May.
On 18th May, the 6th May media was replicated and flies from the 6th May bottle were transferred into these 18th May media bottles.
So we have the temperature range from 17th May to 24th May as well.
Do we really see a temperature difference or drastic deviation in these day??
I dont see any!!
Is it really a temperature bhagwan at fault or is it some other factors???
Today,
when we were again discussing about the same thing,
still we were stuck in the temperature thing!
Surprisingly, diapause & humidity factors also came up…okay…agreed…
So…What is Diapause?
A period of suspended development in an insect, other invertebrate, or mammal embryo, especially during unfavourable environmental conditions.
Unfavourable conditions!!!???
What unfavourable conditions did Aswathy or her flies faced??
Humidity was an answer…okay
So…What is Humidity?
Its the quantitative amount of water vapour present in atmosphere.
How can this affect the flies which are cultured inside a bottle which is kept closed all the time and is opened only when we have to transfer flies…??
[size=4]Now, I would like to tell what could be the reasons along with the explanations for the so claimed delayed life cycle of Aswathy’s flies.[/size]
According to @saswathy679’s observations,
She saw larvae on 26th May (both small and big)
And then, today i.e. on 27th May, she got pupae!!
Can a larva turn into a pupa within a day?
Its impossible according to my experience and observaions with the standard and the native fly cultures.
It takes minimum 2-3 days for a larva to turn into a pupa.
What can we infer from this?
Observation is lacking because strong expectation is missing
LOGICAL EXPECTATION…that has a great role in science, especially in DESIGN
I’ll explain it more…
If Aswathy saw a larva on 26th May and it turned to a pupa on 27th May…
That means there were larvae in the media 3 days before.
So…
On 23rd May, the flies had laid eggs,
On 24th May, the first stage of larva (1mm size)
25th May, second stage larva (2mm size)
26th May, third stage larva (3mm size)
On 27th May, i.e. today, we got to see pupae!!
So what happened??
Expectations were missing
Keen observation with interest was missing
Its ok, she might have missed out…this happens with many of us…but directly taking temperature as the sole reason is not right…
Human errors are to be first analysed.
Its not that temperature cannot affect.
But we need to have the proper data giving evidences that there was a drastic change in the temperature.
As well as we need to be sure that there wasnt any missing out of observations or expectations that happened from our own side.
There could be one more reason,
A normal female fly can be mistaken for a gravid fly.
May be that those female flies weren’t gravid or fertile
This is my comment on the summary of the webinar that we had.
Waiting for comments from everyone.