Summary - 8th June 2020, CUBE Room Webinar
As usual😬, we started with the Fruitflies!
@Saida786110 from Mumbai shared about her latest experimental setup for the study of Circadian Rhythm (Activity Pattern) of Fruitflies in her home lab. She has kept a tomato bait like an attractant for the fruitflies and will be observing it at a two-hour interval.
What is the significance of studying the Activity Pattern of these mere flies?
Looking forward to getting photos and videos along with the data in a statistical manner!
Then, Hina Ma’am came up with her new findings. She had found pupae (from the single line culture) stuck on the cotton plug.
What can be done with that? We shall look forward to getting the exciting studies which can be done with the pupae with cotton as we had discussed it in the Webinar!
(I won’t unravel everything here 
)
And also, please share with us the cat conspiracy story which led to some wonderful identification!
Expect the unexpected!!
There is some interesting thing going on with the Moinas in my home lab.
My research objective is to study the colour change in the Moinas when placed in low oxygen conditions, but this thing which is happening right now is totally different and yesterday’s discussion has taught me and has yielded a lot!
There is a history behind this interesting thing!
But before that, I will give a short-call to what is happening right now.
I have two bottles A1 and A2 (500mL of dechlorinated water) which has around 60 Moinas as of now.
These bottles have greenish-coloured algae growing in them which I have been seeing since 28th May 2020.
I had transferred ~10 Moinas in both the bottles on 5th June 2020 in the afternoon (along with which I had made 5 control bottles having 500mL of DC water + ~10 Moinas + 2 drops of milk, this is also my stock culture of Moinas) and when I saw them in the evening, there were ~20 Moinas in both the bottles A1 and A2.
On this observation, I thought that the 10 Moinas which were transferred initially, were mature adults as well as gravid because of which they gave the progenies!
On the next day i.e. 6th June 2020, there were around 50 Moinas in both the bottles! (They got doubled in 24 hours!!)
This was interesting to me!
The control bottles had ~20 Moinas on 6th June 2020, when compared with their counterparts i.e. the bottles with algal growth, the former had ~50 Moinas in both the bottles in spite of both being prepared on the same day with the similar volume of water, with the same number of Moinas initially, just their feed being different!
Why this!!?
Again, I thought (assuming as previously) that as the initially transferred Moinas must be mature/about to give birth, I saw such numbers in A1 and A2.
Does algae enhance the growth of the crustaceans!!?
But hey, there is a twist in the story!
The history traces back to 18th May 2020.
I had prepared the culture medium in these two bottles Y1 and Y2 (now they are A1 and A2 respectively) with 500mL of dechlorinated water + ~10 Moinas and my idea was to feed them with live Yeast (in the form of granules, whose suspension was poured into the water).
Moina feed on bacteria, yeast, algae as well as decaying matter. So I thought why not give it (yeast) a try?
The timeline of these bottles: 18th May-~10 Moinas, 19th-~15, 20th-~5, 21st-0 Moinas.
Rahul Kushwaha questioned that was I not worried that the number decreased on the second day?
No, I thought that from ~5 Moinas, they shall increase further on, which didn’t happen.
So, I kept the bottles like that only, for a week. The actual stardom 
of the bottles started to develop in the last week of May from 21st May to 28th May. I didn’t observe them much.
What caught my eye on 28th May 2020, is the greenish colour which was visible in both the bottles in the form of a reflection (I keep the bottles in the window side).
I suspected this greenish growth to be algae. To confirm this, I kept the bottles in the window and expected that the growth shall increase over the days and it did increase!
That means the bottles Y1 and Y2 (Y=Yeast) which are now A1 and A2 (A=Algae) respectively, had 500mL of DC water + algae growing in them all these days.
- I didn’t change the water of the bottles! It is the same.
So, coming back to the present, I transferred ~10 Moinas on 5th June 2020 and the rest we know.
Apart from the possible explanation which I gave for the sudden increase in the number of Moinas, the interesting thing which came out of this is, there must be a parallel phenomenon taking place after the death of Moinas.
What is it?
Dormant eggs!!
Normally, when there is a favourable condition in which everything is good, everything in the sense food, oxygen is adequate, the female Moinas reproduce asexually (parthenogenetically) where they give 8-12 direct/live progenies.
But in unfavourable conditions like less oxygen availability, food scarcity, toxicity or crowding, the Moinas changes it’s mode of reproduction to the sexual mode.
Here, the female Moina forms an unfertilized egg in its body, which is fertilized by the male Moina existing in the population. Upon fertilization, the pouch containing the two eggs (as a whole) gets detached from the female Moina. This pouch containing the dormant egg is called ephippia (singular: ephippium).
What happens to this dormant egg; ephippia?
On the onset of favourable conditions, these dormant eggs hatch and give out Moinas. Now, the Moinas that will come out can be both females, both males or one female one male because here, the chromosomes of both the parents are involved in the production of the offsprings.
Interesting! Isn’t it?
The lack of expectation from my side has led to such Alexandar Fleming kind of discovery!
But why do Moinas reproduce through the sexual mode of reproduction?
It consumes a lot of energy if we compare with asexual reproduction! Why then?
After multiple inputs from @Arunan, Dr Subhojit, @Hinaiqbal_Mudgal, Saida, Rahul Kushwaha, @KiranKalakotiR, @Lydia and @yash_sheregare we came to a conclusion.
First of all. we should not humanise this concept that the Moina thinks that it should change the mode of reproduction from asexual to sexual. It is the conditions which influence the change in the organism
As I said, they reproduce sexually in unfavourable conditions although it is energy as well as time-consuming, it facilitates the organism too.
As the unfavourable condition shall wipe out all the members of the population, the organism will try to save itself or at least its future generation from getting wiped out (I know this is contradictory to the statement which I mentioned a few lines above, but this is a simple explanation of why that happens).
As sexual reproduction involves two parents one male and the other female, the crossing over of chromosomes occurs. Crossing over can be defined as the recombination (coming together) of the homologous (similar) pair of genes when they come close. This recombination occurs in the Meiosis stage of the cell cycle.
Recombination leads to variations.
What variations?
The offsprings produced by sexual reproduction are different from their parents.
It will enable to organism to survive and adapt to the changing organism.
As said earlier, it will prevent complete extinction.
An excellent example was taken yesterday, that if a toxin is introduced in the culture, the Moinas which reproduce asexually will produce offsprings which are totally similar to them.
Why?
In asexual reproduction involves just a single parent, there is no chance of crossing over of the genes from the other parent because of which there is no variation. So, the whole population will be affected by the toxin and they might die.
On the contrary, the sexually reproducing Moinas will produce dormant eggs which shall settle down in the culture and is saved from the toxin!
The individuals who will come out from the eggs will be better adapted to their environment than others. Those individuals who are not well adapted to their environment are less likely to survive and reproduce.
This is how it went!
I know this is going too long…
Later, we again discussed the breaking news from Aswathy Suresh, Hina and Deepika.
Dr Subhojit Sen from CEBS, University of Mumbai, added a crucial point that CUBists are working on the identification of fruitflies, that is good, but what if we won’t get the desired result?
Are we going to discard what we have got?
We should not!
All closely related organisms have more or less the same mechanism of molecularity. If someone has done work on Drosophila melanogaster, we shall proceed on what we have got!
The same applies to the findings of @Manasi from Mahad, where she got some new species of snails other than what she has been working on!
Also, @Lydia sent some pictures and a video of tiny snails from her plant pots.
Everyone doing the same thing won’t result in anything new! We should hunt for new!
In the end, the discussion went on with Deepika Iyyangar from Bangalore telling us her research objective and inferences theoretically.
We are promoting homegrown science through our homegrown methods!
Everyone, please add to this and I encourage everyone to join the Webinar and contribute!!
Apologies for the extra-long summary!
How to identify wing vein pattern of fruit flies in our Home Lab…?
. 
Are the features we want to see in the wing.
How to Get a Clear image of Fruit Flies Wing in our Phone Camera !?
selfie, we try to snap it in the best way possible (by taking it multiple times) so that we get satisfied, similarly, here too we should try to take the best picture possible.
) on this too and correct me.
.You should visit the following link for more information