A typical experiment is carried out at 25°C; however, at lower temperatures, the time it takes a fly to complete its life cycle is extended ("Basic Methods of Culturing Drosophila", 2007).
Many previous experiments have used wild-type stocks of Drosophila because they are the standard to which mutants are compared. Stocks kept at room temperature (about 25°C) must be transferred to fresh food every 30 days. For feeding the Drosophila, a variety of mediums can be used; such as cornmeal-treacle-agar and yeast-glucose-agar ("Basic Methods of Culturing Drosophila", 2007). Sometimes, during experimentation, the flies need to be transferred into a new vial, or removed from a vial and placed into a new environment all together. In order to complete this task securely, the flies must be anesthetized. There are two different processes to do this. The first is by anesthetizing specimens using carbon dioxide. This is effective, but can sometimes be more difficult, and if Drosophila are overexposed, they can die very easily. The other is by exposing them to cold temperatures, such as a household freezer, for 1-2 minutes. This will keep the flies stable, but the tester must be wary of freezing the flies to death, or inadvertently damaging them, affecting test results ("Basic Methods of Culturing Drosophila", 2007). .
The olfactory sense in any organism is the sense that helps the organism smell. The olfactory receptors are located on the antennae of fruit flies and and are capable of bonding to certain molecules or compounds. There are over 1000 genes of olfactory receptors, each one having a distinctive structure to bond with different odorants. In the antennae cells, olfactory receptors are situated in the cell membrane so they can capture odorants from outside the cell and transmit information back into the cell (Olfactory Receptor, 2013).
Caffeine is a white, crystalline alkaloid that,when ingested directly, gives off a bitter taste.
