Doritos and Oreos: The Ideal Diet by Evan Qiang

​​I can already see it now. Relaxing in my bed, next to a bag of Doritos and a pack of Oreos, one hand in each container. This would be the perfect life.

Planning project ideas with peers

It turns out that even with my couch potato self, my memory would be very good. Even better, in fact, if I ate no junk food at all. I know I was very surprised at this result; was I being lied to my entire life? Should I give up my boring chicken and rice for the more tasteful junk food?​

Analyzing data into graphs

Testing larval memory

Creating solutions

Of course, my data is highly suspicious, so I would definitely need to repeat my experiment multiple times. However, for my question, “How does junk food affect the progeny of fruit flies?” the answer was junk food increased the memory of the larvae ( the “children”) of fruit flies.​

As you can see from my graphical abstract, I originally believed that those that ate junk food would have bad memory. This turned out to be very incorrect. I used the larval memory assay for my procedure. Essentially, I got the larvae of the fruit flies and trained them to associate a banana scent with a reward. I measured the percentage that went to the banana scent when placed with a banana scent and another rewardless scent. As it turned out, the larvae that were given Doritos and Oreos were about 80% likely to go to the banana scent while the larvae that were given no junk food at all were about 50% likely to go to the banana scent. Strangely enough, 50% of the larvae given chips also went to the banana scent, which was unlike the other junk foods. Of course, this data is very interesting that can definitely be explored deeper.

​These past six weeks were not filled with only successes. From thinking I lost my vials twice to storing my vials in a dark drawer, I faced many funny (if major) setbacks. However, even after staying sometimes an hour late just to get my results every week, I can say that TRIP has been an amazing program. I have learned so much, especially how science is full of failure. Nothing has pushed me further then finding a mistake and coming back from it stronger the next week.

​In the beginning of 2019, I was probably too scared to work with some pesky fruit flies. Now, I’m not afraid of dropping my vials on the floor (except maybe all the cleanup). TRIP has taught me to go out of my comfort zone while strengthening the skills I wouldn’t be able to work on in school.
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These were 12 weeks I'll never forget.​