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one of the newer labs that arrived at

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the International Space Station was

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filled with fruit flies

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obviously might be asking why are we

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studying them when we already have

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humans in space one of the answers fruit

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flies a model organism used in many

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research studies and we actually sent

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225 flies up to the space station to

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study at the same time where we can only

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send a couple of humans a year out at

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the Marshall Space Flight Center our

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Lori Meggs visited the farm if you will

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which is located out at the Ames

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Research Center to learn a little bit

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more about raising fruit flies for Space

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Flight well we're here down on the farm

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but it's really not your average farm I

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mean it looks like a million fruit flies

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there jazz what we do here on the farm

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this is exactly what you're seeing so

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this is where we breed the Flies so this

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is where we could get hundreds and

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hundreds of flies that we need when we

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do Space Flight experiments and you know

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if there's a scrub because of bad

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weather or something like that we have

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to fly the next day or the day after you

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have a couple of extra we have yes yes

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exactly we have tons extra but these

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aren't the same they're all different

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kinds exactly that's what I was gonna

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say these are also all genetically all

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different so even though to you they all

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look like bottles of flies but these are

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genetically all different and so let's

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say if there was one of these genetic

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lines that we were gonna fly for space

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flight we would take that and we would

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expand that stock to make many many many

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copies so that whenever we needed it we

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were ready with young flies so to make

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copies we've got to feed them and that's

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what happens in here too

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exactly exactly so this stuff here that

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you can see is the food and so what you

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know as you can see it's a lot of work

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so what the team does is that they they

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make the food you have to give them food

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regularly unlike if you're working with

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say bacteria or yeast you don't want to

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work with them for a while you put them

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in the freezer and they're good to go

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and then when you're ready you come back

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and you revive them right you can't do

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that with flies you have to constantly

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keep them alive and give them food till

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you're ready to use them and then all

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these different genetics talks are used

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for different kinds of experiments I'm

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just gonna say how do you decide ok it's

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this jar that's going now or this bottle

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that's going now it's usually to do with

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the science question you're asking so

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some of them for example may be

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important for studying how the heart

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functions and so believe it or not these

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flies have little hearts exactly like we

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do that beat and that have the same kind

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of regulation for the rhythm sort of

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heart rhythm and so there are some

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mutants here where the the fly's heart

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function is altered just like they would

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be in a human in a family which had that

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particular mutation similarly there are

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mutations for the immune system so that

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the immune function may be impaired

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there's other kinds of mutations for

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example stress so we have some called

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their long live flies so there's this

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one that we love that's called Indy

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which stands for I'm not dead yet

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because those flies actually live almost

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twice as long as their counterpart

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without this particular gene change and

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that's usually 30 days right their

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lifespan is is it four days yeah so once

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the adults come out meaning that from

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the egg to the adult is about 10 to 12

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days and then once the adult comes out

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they can live anywhere from you know

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four to eight weeks usually about six

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weeks but then the long-lived mutants

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can live two months almost Wow and and I

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keep holding this but but yes these are

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breathable I mean it's not sealed

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exactly so that's an excellent question

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so yeah these bought these have actually

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living flies in them as well as eggs

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larvae pupae and the adults which are

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all the life stages and so they all need

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to breathe and so these are the caught

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these are cotton plugs that compressed

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cotton so what's neat is that allow air

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flow back and forth very well but yet

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they don't allow other infectious things

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or other bugs that you don't want in

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there to go in so it's protective but at

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the same time we double so we grow flies

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here all the time we do we do in fact we

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have to have a continual stop going and

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so all of these and you can you can tell

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this would be too much work to do all in

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one day and so basically the way we do

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it is you know folks in the lab on a

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weekly basis have to feed and mind you

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what you're seeing here is only a subset

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inside these incubators we have more

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flies as well and so all of them need to

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be fed on a regular basis so they don't

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run out of food and so that we're ready

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for space flight when we need to fly

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these fly knots up into space what is

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the one thing that we really have

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learned from studying fruit flies in

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space we've actually learned several

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things one of them just to give you an

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example from the last experiment is that

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we the immune system of the fruit fly is

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affected by spaceflight which you know

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is not surprising in terms of we see

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that in humans and in other animals we

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see indications of that we also see that

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in fly so then slice act as a good model

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to study the changes in the immune

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system in spaceflight we also find that

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there are changes in stress which again

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you know happens to humans in

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spaceflight as you can imagine it's a

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pretty stressful environment

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it happens to foo flies as well and so

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what we learned from looking at their

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their physiology and their genetic

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changes after spaceflight is that there

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are these changes in oxidative stress so

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you can study the mechanism by which the

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stress happens and what you can do to

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counter it with the Flies

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in the future oh another thing for to

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give you an example is a group of

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scientists along with myself and our

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collaborators Ralph Bodmer Karen oak or

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Peter Lee what we're looking at we're

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also using the fly as a model to study

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cardiovascular function so you can look

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at flies look at heart function and how

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it's altered in space and also have

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genetically engineered versions that

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have the same sorts of defects in heart

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function that the human population have

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there are some mutants where you know if

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a family has it in the human population

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they're predisposed to heart problems

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the flies have families like that too

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and so we study those in the spaceflight

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context to understand you know what are

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the alterations what can you do to try

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and prevent those and things like that

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what the fruit flies eat so fruit flies

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eat a mixture it's it's kind of a it's a

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nutritious diet there are two different

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kinds of diets that we have in the lab

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there's this this food that you see in

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the white color and then there's another

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one that we're using that we use for for

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a space flight that that Shoko was just

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working on which is this blue color we

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put this blue food dye in but

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essentially it's a mixture

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there's agar to kind of hold shape but

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that's cornmeal there's sugars like

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dextrose and stuff there's some yeast

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he killed yeast that we put in you know

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to get proteins and vitamins and things

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like that so it's a nutritious meal that

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we and a complete meal not enough for me

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I'm gonna have to look in one of these