Hello everyone 
4th June Webinar Summary
We had a deep discussion on the model system FRUITFLY.
A hypothesis was made at the very beginning which said that the standard CsBz flies (which are lab bred for the past 80 years) would have a deprived olfaction as compared to the flies present in the wild environment
Another hypothesis or statement was that the CsBz flies which are inside the bottle will have all sorts of sensitivity of olfaction i.e. low, moderate and high sensitivity of olfaction.
@Rahul CUBE TIFR thought of trapping those CUBists with this hypothesis into a bait (question) that he thought of.
The trap bait question was that “In a single line culture of flies belonging to a one single mother inside a bottle, what would be the outcome”
Will there be different sensitivities of olfaction?
@Hina Ma’am CUBE Kanpur wanted to help those who were in the trap by asking a question… “Do all the siblings belonging to a parent look alike”
So this question helped…
Some of our CUBists then gave an answer saying that there would be all kinds of olfaction (low, moderate & high).
The reason for such an answer was that the female gravid fly must have mated with a male…so variations are expected.
@Aashutosh Sir wanted to put forth one question in 2 different cases or in 2 different conditions.
2 out of 100 flies have good olfaction…what would be the condition or the percentage of flies having good olfaction after 100 generations? Will there be a difference?
1st case: Inside the bottle???
“After 100 generations, there won’t be much of a difference in the number of flies having good olfaction… because all are surviving in the bottle (as food is readily available) the ones with low olfaction, moderate olfaction…” was the answer of the people in the trap.
2nd case: In the wild environment???
After 100 generations, the ones having good olfaction will survive as they will be able to smell and reach the food while the ones with low olfaction won’t be able to reach the food and hence starve and die…the ones with low olfaction won’t die immediately but will die gradually.
We had @Suman sir with us.
He was not much familiar with all of this…and hence he asked questions which cleared some basic doubts that a common man would have…
What are single line cultures?
How to identify a gravid fly for making a single line culture?
The main important question by sir which is our objective of our research question
How can we say that the wild environment flies would have a better sensitivity olfaction than the flies that are being bred in a bottle for 80 years?!!
On what basis??
Here we had to explain the design of the experiment that we do to prove such a hypothesis.
Olfactory assay was explained by @yash_sheregare .
(Yash will give a summary of the design of the olfactometer that we had discussed yesterday.)
What are we actually finding out by doing this whole experiment thing?
(@Arunan Sir helped in building up the whole thing so that everyone could understand.)
We are finding out, that which is the lowest concentration of the banana essence chemical [(IAA: Iso amyl acetate) (used in the experimental olfactometer)] where maximum number of the CsBz larvae are not able to smell or get attracted to the attractant that is kept.
There are 2 scenes here that are being compared which connects to our hypothesis.
Scene 1:
The lowest concentration of the banana essence (10^-6 conc.) chemical which attracts CsBz larvae towards it and then after which (10^-7 conc.) maximum number of the larvae is not able to smell the attractant.
Scene 2:
The lowest concentration of the banana essence (10^-7) chemical where maximum number of the CsBz larvae is not able to smell the attractant but the wild environment larvae are able to smell much more lower concentration (10^-7, 10^-8 conc.)
The difference in the 2 scenes here is compared and hence such a hypothesis that,
Standard CsBz flies (which are lab bred for the past 80 years) would have a deprived olfaction as compared to the flies present in the wild environment.
I hope I’m making things clear. If not please ask. Because of our discussions and the doubts raised during the webinar help us in getting some of our concepts clear.