# 🪱 From Kitchen Slabs to Soil Labs: Adventures with Fruit Flies and Nematodes!

**URL:** https://metastudio.org/t/from-kitchen-slabs-to-soil-labs-adventures-with-fruit-flies-and-nematodes/15908
**Category:** CUBE chat
**Created:** [October 26, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://metastudio.org/t/from-kitchen-slabs-to-soil-labs-adventures-with-fruit-flies-and-nematodes/15908 "2025-10-26T17:06:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Sailekshmi](https://metastudio.org/user_avatar/metastudio.org/sailekshmi/32/16693_2.png) [@Sailekshmi](https://metastudio.org/u/Sailekshmi)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://metastudio.org/t/from-kitchen-slabs-to-soil-labs-adventures-with-fruit-flies-and-nematodes/15908/1 "2025-10-26T17:06:10Z")

</div>

## 🧠 **CUBE ChatShaala Summary — 26 October 2025**

Today’s ChatShaala revolved around **model system explorations** by community members, focusing mainly on _fruit flies (Drosophila)_ and _soil nematodes (C. elegans)_—two simple yet powerful organisms used for behavioral and genetic studies in home labs.

 ![68569221-d6a2-49bf-be63-3e4e77774cc6](https://metastudio.org/uploads/default/original/3X/b/3/b398c2531eeffcde29f2f89d307fc23d68159cf2.jpeg)  
 ![844558bb-78fc-4192-a6e0-b9fb93703bda](https://metastudio.org/uploads/default/original/3X/8/5/85ada99ce06a21cae116ec115df2af26f57c5e0c.jpeg)

### 🍅 **Sailekshmi’s Food Preference Test of Fruit Flies**

Sailekshmi presented her experiment on the **food preference of fruit flies** using tomato, onion, and cucumber as test materials. Two setups were compared—one near the **hall window** and another on the **kitchen slab** —to observe how environmental factors might affect fly attraction.  
This experiment contributes to understanding how \*\*microhabitat variation and food odor influence Drosophila behavior.

### 🪰 **Sakshi’s Fruit Fly Sleep-Wake Cycle Studies**

Sakshi shared her progress on studying the **sleep–wake rhythm of fruit flies** , noting variations in fly activity patterns at different times of the day. These behavioral observations may help in connecting **circadian rhythms** in flies to environmental stimuli such as light and temperature, an important step in modeling human biological rhythms at home labs.

### 🪱 **Nematode Studies—C. elegans from Soil Samples**

The discussion then moved to soil nematode investigations, inspired by past CUBE experiments on **isolating C. elegans** from soil. Using **boiled potato as a bacterial attractant** , members tried to recreate habitats that encourage nematode appearance.  
This connects to the larger question: _Can we really find and maintain C. elegans-like nematodes from Indian soil samples under home conditions?_

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## 💡 **Gaps and Misconceptions**

1. Some participants were unsure whether _C. elegans_ can be directly isolated from local soils or whether they need specific culture media.

2. There was confusion about **distinguishing free-living nematodes** from _C. elegans_ based on size and motion patterns.

3. In the fruit fly experiment, the **odor-based attraction vs. visual cues** was not clearly differentiated—prompting the need for a controlled comparison.

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## 🌟 **TINKE Moments (Thoughts I Never Knew Existed)**

- The realization that _simple home setups like kitchen slabs or boiled potatoes_ can serve as experimental models for studying global research organisms.

- The insight that fruit flies and nematodes share behavioral principles that can link _nutrition, circadian rhythm, and evolution_.

- The curiosity that emerged when flies preferred certain foods more near the window—hinting at the role of **microenvironmental cues**.

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## 🔍 Queries to the Community

1. 🪰 _Do fruit flies prefer the same food in different rooms—or do micro-environmental factors influence their “taste”?_

2. 🪱 _Can Indian soil truly harbor C. elegans, or are we observing look-alike nematodes?_

3. 🧬 _What if we connect Sailekshmi’s food preference test with Sakshi’s sleep–wake study —  
could diet influence activity cycles in fruit flies?_

4. 🧫 _Can boiled potato serve as a simple medium for observing microbial-nematode interactions at home labs?_

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## ✨ **What I Learned**

Today’s ChatShaala beautifully demonstrated how **simple observations at home** can open up pathways to **scientific reasoning and model system exploration**. Whether it’s fruit flies’ behavioral choices or nematodes’ survival patterns, each experiment adds to our understanding of how life thrives even in the simplest of conditions.

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## 📸 **Photographs duing Chatshaala**

 ![dd46f4f1-c828-4a0e-ae50-5f6cf86c0b06](https://metastudio.org/uploads/default/original/3X/f/1/f17bc8c7b46d44087a2508c05d1a42d845e54325.jpeg)  
 ![9514005a-5f44-418e-be6f-0eca8bf21923](https://metastudio.org/uploads/default/original/3X/6/7/671dc5f967669efa8c2db0090a311ae7a3e3fb11.jpeg)

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## 📹 **video of _C. elegans_ by @magpie**

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## 📚 **Referance**

🔗 [Isolation of _C. elegans_ in Home Labs (Bengal)](https://metastudio.org/t/isolation-of-c-elegans-at-home-lab-from-soil-in-bengal/5523)  
🔗 [The Worm That Won the World—Medium Article](https://medium.com/@v.shravani/the-worm-that-won-the-world-how-c-elegans-secured-four-nobel-prizes-in-science-5aaedbd5)  
🔗 [Looking for _C. elegans_ in Indian Soil](https://metastudio.org/t/isolation-of-soil-nematodes-looking-for-c-elegans-in-indian-soil/149606449)  
🔗 [Soil Nematodes studies by Class 10th students](https://metastudio.org/t/mannal-a-10th-grade-student-from-dsms-delhi-designing-an-experiment-to-isolate-nematodes/13812)