More Fly Lore... by Endy Ascencio-Miranda

There is a lot of catching up since the last blog post. From setting up my first practice experiment, to presenting said information, and now finally creating my own experiment - things are cooking up fast. I’d like to mention that I have been beyond grateful for this journey through TRIP so far. I’ve grown so much as a scientist, mainly because of the amazing instructors and TA’s along with the amazing people who I grow alongside with. First let me tell you about my first experimental question, “How does St. John’s wort and circadian rhythm affect mood?” 

This initial experiment was exciting to run. It was fascinating to perform the “Social Space Assay” which places fruit flies in small social chambers. The closer they are the more “sociable” they are and vice versa. Although presenting this information was a different story… Personally, I’ve never been the greatest presenter and that’s not something I’m ashamed of but I received helpful feedback to hopefully improve my presentation skills.

Other than that I finally get to create my own experiment. I’d say the hardest part was actually creating one, at first I really thought I had a great idea but it turns out that it wasn’t good enough. Luckily I was able to come up with something. As of lately I haven’t been able to fall asleep without the sound of my fan. This then led me to think about White Noise along with the different colors of noise. Different colors of noises have different properties ranging from frequencies to amplitude. This led me to wonder which sound would be the best for memory. In order to test their effectiveness I will perform the larval memory assay, where I would condition larvae to associate a smell with a sound. Then I would create two sides, one that is conditioned and the other not conditioned to see if the larvae remembered the sound. That’s just a barebone explanation of the assay but I just can’t wait to see the results!