European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 16 February | 66 comments (66 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Fruit flies drawn to the sweet smell of youth

Aging takes its toll on sex appeal and now an international team of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Michigan find that in fruit flies, at least, it even diminishes the come-hither effect of the chemicals of love - pheromones.
"This is new because we have direct evidence that the pheromones produced at these different ages affect sexual attractiveness differently," said Tsung-Han Kuo, a graduate student in the department of molecular and human genetics and the Huffington Center on Aging at BCM. Kuo is first author of the report that appears online in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Pheromones are chemicals produced by an organism to communicate or attract another. In this case, Drosophila melanogaster or fruit flies produce chemicals called cuticular hydrocarbons.
Special mass spectrometry studies that looked in detail at the composition and level of production of these hydrocarbons showed that they differed between the sexes, but more important, they changed with age.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Feb 15th, 2012 at 10:07:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Time flies like an arrow (none / 0)

Fruit flies like a banana.

But time flies for fruit flies too.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Thu Feb 16th, 2012 at 06:10:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Living On the Planet (none / 0)

"Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like..."

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Thu Feb 16th, 2012 at 07:25:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Living On the Planet (none / 0)

... a banana.

tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Feb 16th, 2012 at 09:04:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Living On the Planet (none / 1)

"Fruit flies like a banana" is a proposition in entomological gastronomy, whereas "Fruit flies like a banana" is a proposition in horticultural aerobatics. These two subjects, while they are important intellectual disciplines demanding our utmost respect, are still in their infancy, and unfortunately we cannot rely on them for more than tentative, if hopeful, guesses as to whether fruit flies do like a banana, or as to whether fruit does fly like a banana, The important fact is that the two fields have as yet no common ground; at present, no reputable interdisciplinary work has been done in both at once; no joint degree has been taken in entomological gastronomy as applied to horticultural aerobatics; no lecture entitled "Fruit flight and the diet of Drosphila: bananism versus pomegranity" has been read, There is no connection between the two sentences.

(from Carl E. Linderholm, Mathematics made difficult, discussion as to whether AB=AB)

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Thu Feb 16th, 2012 at 09:55:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 16 February | 66 comments (66 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)