Highlights of May 2023
Study of Nail growth: 
Cubist: Khushi Gupta
️ Question: How long does the nail grow in a week’s time ?
Hypothesis: The average growth rate is 2 mm in all age groups.
Sample :
3yr old - male and female
14 yr old- male and female
20 yr old- two females
40 yr old- one male
60 yr old- one female
Stain used: Nail paint on left-hand index finger
Measured using: measuring scale
Data collected - Day 1: 1st May
Day 7: 7th May
Essential descriptions along with posting pictures are 
Date, Location, Name of collector, Age, Gender, objective
Results: The average growth of nails in all age groups was approximately 1 mm.
Prithviraj sir’s nail growth study
Sample collected - 50 yr old male
Daily updates on nail growth
Stain use- nail paint
Measurement- measuring scale and graph paper
Theertha and Abhijeet also participated in the nail growth study
The stain used- Mehendi
Shalini Sharma nail growth
Shalini collected pics of nails using voters ink stain
Used graph paper and scale to measure
Smiti’s design to study nail growth 
Research question: can we compare nail growth in humans, age-wise, gender-wise, and finger-wise?
Objective: To check the rate of nail growth age-wise, gender-wise, and finger-wise in humans
Hypothesis: The rate of nail growth will be faster in females, it will decrease as we grow old and it will be faster in the thumb and index finger
Procedure: Marking all fingers of the left hand with henna mehndi
Staining full nails with mehndi
Observation: Take observations every alternate day for 2 weeks (7 observations in 2 weeks), measure growth by using image meter app, archive them by posting on metastudio, and present them using Google slide
Result: Analysis of data by comparing them, checking how right we are (our hypothesis is), and conclude it accordingly
Note: Observations
Shraddha homelab - How do fruit flies and psyche butterflies are attracted to food?
In the Psyche butterfly, the female recognizes its host plants by smelling through antennae and tasting through chemoreceptors present on their tarsi.
For taste, butterflies scratch leaf surfaces with their feet.
At the tips of feet and antennae, there might be receptors present.
Abhijeet and Dr. Dinesh Datta’s views: 
Any macromolecule, which can act on a receptor and induce a response is the ligand. Ligands can be a neurotransmitter, fat, protein, hormone, or synthetic drug.
For example, let’s say there’s a banana. The fragrance of banana is spreading in the air and it falls on the olfactory receptors of fruit flies. Thus, here the fragrance is a ligand.
Breaking news by Sakshi Beloge :
Sakshi has been culturing moinas for January 2023 by adding milk drop daily as food. But she stopped adding milk and surprisingly MOINAS SURVIVES 5 MONTHS WITHOUT MILK !! She also observed algal growth. She suspected that moinas were feeding on algae. She will subculture moinas in different bottles.
Smiti and Drosophila:
This a throwback from Smitis’ past experiment!!
On 8th October, she successfully trapped fruit flies and her first-ever culture was ready!!
On joining CUBE on 13th October she learned to prepare BRSV (Banana Sugar Rava Vinegar) media to culture fruit flies in her home lab.
How did she develop her BRSV media to culture fruit flies in her homelab ?
BRSV medium stands for banana, rava, sugar, and vinegar 
Take one banana + 25 g of rava + 2.5 g of sugar. Add it to 100 ml of boiling water. Further, add vinegar.
Comparing BRSV media with standard Corn meal agar media -
She replaced them with easily available ingredients like instead of agar she used rava as a solidifying agent and instead of propionic acid and orthophosphoric acid, she used vinegar which is an acetic acid to prevent contamination i.e. bacterial and fungal growth. Bananas for attracting fruit flies and sugar for providing energy.
She used this media to culture her flies for about 8 months. Her ultimate goal was to isolate Drosophila melanogaster- The 6-time Nobel prize-winning organism!
She made single-line culture by isolating gravid [pregnant ] flies, but her cultures were dying due to mite infestations!
She got solutions from her seniors to save her culture by adding 20% of sucrose solutions in the bottle and when larvae come up she can isolate them. But she unknowingly washed fruit flies in 20% sucrose solution [ i.e 20 gm table sugar in 100ml water] and put them in new media without rinsing them in the water again. After 2 days she noticed that larvae were becoming fatter or obese and she reported that in C2C. So after a discussion, her senior Saida said that this could be due to diabetes.
However these larvae took 6-7 days to become a pupa and also their appearance changed! Smiti had isolated a different fly from some Phoridae family. Her flies completed their lifecycle in around a week but these flies took a month to complete it!!
On 11th May, Kiran Maam screened an article saying IT IS POSSIBLE TO STUDY DIABETES IN DROSOPHILA!! 
as they have 7 insulin-like peptides and different insulin pathways.
Diabetes is basically a metabolic disease that is caused due to lack of sufficient insulin or when the configuration of the receptor changes (acc. to her these are 2 possibilities). Insulin needs to bind with its receptor so that the cell gets a signal to open the glucose channel for glucose uptake for aerobic respiration in the human body.
How did she identify Drosophila melanogaster? 
Characteristics such as red eyes, brownish yellow thorax, and transparent pair of wings
Earthworm culture:
Cubist : Mahak Pandagale
Date- 15/5/23
Location- RIE campus garden
Earthworm culture Day 1 by using vermicompost
step 1- A bucket and placed a plastic bag with holes in it, then added soil.
step 2 - poured little water to moisten
step 3 - mango peels and dry leaves were added as food.
step 4- khaad was added and again some water was poured.
step 5- soil containing 4–5 earthworms were added.
step 6- covered it with cloth and placed it in a shady place.
Khaad- organic by mixing cow dung, and wet wastes like vegetables, and fruit peels.
TINKE moments:+1: 
The genome is the same for all cells in an organism’s body. In every cell, some genes are expressed while others are shut off. This differential pattern is based on the tissue or organ or developmental stage etc the cell is in. However, there are housekeeping genes that are constitutively expressed in almost all cells of the body. In summation, the genome is the same but the regulation of gene expression is what makes cells different.
Drosophila melanogaster has genes that produce insulin-like peptides hence it can be a useful model organism to study Diabetes !!