Scientific gift "Lord of the Flies" from the workshop "Biological experiments"

BIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS
GIFT INSTRUCTION

Lord of the Flies

Hello, dear friend!

You got a present with real live fruit flies! But these are not just flies that will live in a test tube. You will be faced with a full-fledged scientific problem, for the solution of which you will need patience, attentiveness and this instruction.

For reference:

All living organisms (plants, animals, bacteria, etc.) have genes. The genes store information about how the body should look, when it needs to sleep, eat, etc. It is extremely difficult to do without genes, so genes have been closely studied for over 200 years. And such an organism as the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) helped scientists with this. Drosophila is one of the most common experimental organisms among biologists, because they are easy to breed, track them, and their genes are very similar to humans. For example, their genes, like ours, can be strong or they can be weak.

What is the difference between strong and weak genes? Let's take a look at the genes responsible for eye color in Drosophila. The genes responsible for red eye color are strong, and those for white color are weak. If the fly only has strong genes, then everything is in order, the eye color of the fly remains red. The same situation with weak genes, the color of the eyes of such a fly will be white. But if there are both weak and strong genes, then in this case the eye color will still be red. Because strong genes work better than weak genes, and they are clearly visible.

How do you know which genes are strong and which are weak? To do this, they take two organisms, carefully look at their distinctive features, and then take their descendants (children) and carefully look at who inherited what distinctive features from their parents. If all children have big ears, it means that the gene for big ears is stronger than for small ones. This will be your task, dear friend. You will need to understand which gene is strong and which is weak. We will consider the genes responsible for the presence and absence of wings in Drosophila.

In your set:

Feed tube
Cork (air permeable, but impervious to flies)
Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) with wings - 2 pieces
Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) without wings - 2 pieces

Instructions:

As soon as you come home, you need to put the test tube with flies in a warm place. The temperature should not exceed 30 degrees Celsius, but also should not be less than 22 degrees Celsius. The best option is to put it in the room, there are no drafts and the battery always works (the test tube cannot be put on the battery).

And now the hardest part of the experiment is waiting. Fruit flies take 12 to 18 days to develop into an adult fly. At this time, they do not need anything, food and water are in a test tube, air passes through the cork, and they can keep each other company themselves.

After 12-18 days, you will need to carefully look at which flies there are more in the test tube, and write on a piece of paper how many flies with wings, how many without. Initially there were 2 with wings and 2 without wings. It will be difficult to count the flies, but accurate calculations are not needed here, an approximate number will be enough.

This point is the most important! It is necessary to understand which genes are stronger: those responsible for the presence of wings or for their absence. Answer this question for yourself and see the next point, check your hypothesis. Good luck, dear friend, with this biological experiment!

What happened?

If you have more flies with wings than without wings, then the gene for the presence of wings is strong, and the gene for the absence of wings, on the contrary, is weak. If there are more wingless flies, then the strong gene is the gene for the absence of wings.

By the way, do you remember about the "Collect unique DNA" card that you received during the program?

It's time to check what kind of creature you did!

Let's repeat, just in case.

Choose the properties it will have.
Write down the numbers of these properties in your table.
Go to page: DNA constructor ↗
Find out what your creation looks like and read other interesting facts about it!

Select properties and write their numbers in the table.

Next science workshop in Barcelona

May 13, Saturday
scientific workshop for children 5-6, 7-10 and 11-13 years

CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS OF ... FOOD!

We will understand the chemical and physical properties of food, create gummy bears, assemble our own devices for extracting odors, figure it out in food additives and create them in the laboratory, study the physical and chemical properties of familiar products, and even prepare rations for astronauts. Science has never tasted so good!

Participate!

None of our programs are repeated. The schedule of the nearest programs you can see on the page Calendar ↗. And on the page about us ↗ you can see which programs we have already run.

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