Halfway Through Our TRIP! by Rhianna Zhang

I can’t believe we’re almost at the halfway point in our journey—time really does fly. These past weeks have been both rewarding and fun, and I am more than grateful for this wonderful opportunity. 
​We have just wrapped up the presentations for our kickoff experiments, where I studied the impacts of a high-sugar diet and ginkgo biloba on fruit fly motility. To test this, I used the negative geotaxis assay, which measures fly activity by quantifying how far up a vial they can climb in three seconds. The flies that had been exposed to the high-sugar diet were less motile than the control group. However, to my surprise, the flies that had been treated with ginkgo biloba, which I had initially hypothesized would benefit their health and motility, ended up being even less active than the flies treated with sugar! 
I am now brainstorming ideas for my independent project, which I am so excited about. My original idea had been to study the impacts of oscillating magnetic fields on fruit fly vision, due to circulating hypotheses about the physics behind the retina, but I ended up changing the direction of my project after talking to Dr. Purdy and Dr. Austria due to its lack of applicability to human health. I now plan to study fruit flies’ sensitivity to static and radiofrequency fields—I have always been passionate about physics and the ways in which it can intersect with biology. I can’t wait to see how this project will turn out!

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