CUBE online Webinar Meet on 26/03/2020

Summary of CUBE Webinar Causerie!!!

What all is still possible during Lockdown with our scientific studies?

Today, as I joined in late but we discussed different model systems like rotifers and drosophila.

There was already a discussion going with participants @⁨Nazish ISCM⁩ @KiranyadavR and @Arunan ⁩ sir on Rotifers…
As far as I could hear, it was about locality Pagalapos and am sure @KiranyadavR@Nazish has to add alot to this…

We then discussed about Drosophila and Circadian Rhythm in fruit flies

How could anyone and everyone do such studies at their place even when there are Pandemic crisis going on?

What is Circadian Rhythm and does it occur in Drosophila?

@KiranyadavR added, Circadian Rhythm is the Biological clock that functions in all organims in response to environment!

What is an ideal way to study Circadian Rhythm in fruit flies?
For fruit flies, we can study the activity of flies by counting the number of fruit flies that appear in our Trap that will be kept for Fruit flies.

_How can we perform this experiment and what is the expectation of activity of fruit flies over a 24 hour cycle? _

Experiment - We keep A trap of fruit flies at regular intervals of time (say every 2 hours from 6am in the morning to 6 pm in the evening or 6 am the next day)
and count the number of fruit flies that arrive in the trap

(A trap can be made by simply using a plastic bottle and adding some chopped :banana: to it ,also cleaning the bottle cap with tissue paper to avoid flies sitting on the bottle rim)

Expectation - We can plot our expectation in the form of a graph
On Y axis (Number of flies)
X axis (Time)

Ideal way that we can try for the experiment-
We can start the experiment on 6 am in the morning and actually keep the trap around 5:45am to score for the number of fruit flies that arrive at 6am in the trap…

What is the time interval for scoring the activity of flies in terms of their number?
We can keep 2 hour internal or even 3 depending upon our need and resources available.

At around 7:45 am, we remove the previous bottle and we will keep another trap bottle containing :banana: to score for the number of flies that arrive at 8am

Likewise it can be continued for every 2 hour interval and we can get a graph of the activity of fruit flies (in terms of number of fruit flies that arrive in the trap) at regular intervals of time for 12/24hour cycle.

What all other modifications should we do according to you all?
How can we further refine this experiment @KiranyadavR @Isha_23@AditiKale @Arunan sir @drishtantmkawale ⁩⁩
I nominate and challenge you all to try this experiment.

Open to suggestions and modifications!

Expectation Graph :chart_with_upwards_trend: for Activity of Fruit flies as a function Y ( Number of fruit flies) & Xaxis (Time)
IMG_20200326_231616|690x460

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This sounds interesting.

Activity of the fruit flies is essentially the number of fruitflies one is observing during a given interval size i.e 2 hours slots at various times of the day?

So, before taking the next observation, one has to empty the bottle right? Or is it the cumulative number of flies in the box? Or the difference between the current reading and the previous reading ?

Also, I haven’t really understood how would one understand the circadian rhythm with this data? It would be helpful if someone can elaborate on this.

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Yes @ravi312, here we define activity as number of fruit flies that arrive at our trap. The Time interval kept is 2 hours interval (though it can be varied depending upon our need and convenience, like one could also check for the Number of fruit flies every 1 hour interval or every 4 hour as well! ) The trap that we kept was just a :banana: Peel as against any box or bottle as we are at our home during Lockdown situation and what essentially attracts these fruit flies is not the vessel but the Fruit / rotten fruit like banana.

Next explanation to what observation we take? We make an observation of the Number of fruit flies that we see at every 2 hour interval. So we don’t empty or shoo away the fruit flies. We just count at 2 hour interval time, the total number of fruit flies seen. @ravi312

Okay thanks !

So, there is just a banana peel in a corner of the house and counting the number of flies every x hours interval, isn’t it? Will that be possible to share a picture of one such observation ?

Is it hard to count the number of fruit flies since I assume they would be flying around hence changing their positions?

Just a hunch, won’t the number of flies approaching the peel a function of decay stage of the peel itself? Isn’t a stronger smell likely to attract more flies?

Also, the query about connecting this data back to circadian rhythm, I am not clear yet. It would be helpful if someone could elaborate on that too.

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