Memory Assay Misadventure: The Sequel

This is what you’ve been waiting for—the long-awaited (not really) sequel to how it worked out when I tried the memory assay again. Forget the social space assay—that’s easy. This is the devil we’re dealing with here. And it’s amazing.

I scrapped the original procedures handed to me, and I redesigned the assay my way with the petri dish technique. I made detailed notes on what exactly to do, how long to set timers for, and what supplies to use—basing all of this off of what caused flies to die last time.

And it started off pretty okay. I had a whole petri dish of flies that were surviving that went through training twice. I had high hopes and started setting up duplicates to make the process go by quicker.

And that’s when the flies started dying again. Luckily, this time it wasn’t as much of my fault! I didn’t crush any with the petri dish lids, none of them drowned from me keeping them in ice for too long, and I didn’t suffocate any either.

They still died from fumes. That’s it. I tried to put as little of the pineapple and banana odors into the dishes as possible, and they still couldn’t take it.

If I had more weeks to work with this, I’d probably try this assay by using natural, non-chemical scents (by possibly putting cotton soaked in actual fruit juice in dishes).

Someday, I swear I will get revenge on the concept of the memory assay by getting it right. Just watch.

But in the meantime, even though I came an hour early, I had to stay another three extra hours late to attempt this assay and then do a glucose assay again when it didn’t work. But hey, perseverance pays off. Never give up! Even if you’re doing the memory assay…

Author: Sasha Temerte