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we're joined today by Vic Cooley who is

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the lead increment scientist for this

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expedition expedition 42 as well as the

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previous expedition expedition 41 and

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he's gonna talk to us a little bit today

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about one of the experiments that

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Samantha Christopher Eddie has been

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working on this morning the flute fruit

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fly lab experiment thanks so much for

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joining this bit thank you brandy I'm

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glad to be here all right well why don't

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we just start by telling give us a

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little background on what this

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experiment is well let me back up a

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little bit and tie it to what you were

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talking about the the to plant

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experiments the advanced plant

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experiment and the UNECE o2 Buell they

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both use the model organism the plant

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organism called Vale cress as you

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pointed out so that's a model a organism

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in the plant domain and of course we

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have a number of model organisms in the

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animal kingdom and you a person could

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argue that fruit flies are the most

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important or oldest model among all the

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model organisms in the animal kingdom

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and this is because when the biologists

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were first trying to understand how

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chromosomes passed along inherited

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characteristics the fruit fly was a very

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attractive model organism and this was

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because it was easy to grow it had a

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short generation of about ten days and

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you could you could see visible

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characteristics without you know

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dissecting and using a microscope you

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could see inherited characteristics like

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high color and wing length and wing

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color and things like that okay so all

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these characteristics made it very

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attractive and so about a hundred years

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ago at the turn of the century

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scientists started doing this research

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on fruit flies in their chromosomes it

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turns out that they have in their

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salivary glands some huge chromosomes

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relative to other chromosomes they're

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actually about one fiftieth of the

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thickness of a dime so it takes a just a

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very low powered microscope to actually

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find these chromosomes so for about two

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decades at Columbia University there was

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a lab and on the top

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or that lab it became known as the fly

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room because it's unpleasant

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all of these researchers had jars of

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flies fruit flies all over their desks -

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in various kinds of experiments and then

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in 1933 the professor of those

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experiments Thomas not Morgan went on to

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win the Nobel in in medicine or

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physiology for elucidating the role that

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chromosomes play and in passing along

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inherited characteristics so that just

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kind of gives you an idea why you might

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regard the fruit fly among fish and mice

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and roundworms C elegans as as the most

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important model organisms among the

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animals that we have as a model

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organisms we have all those others in

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different experiments on the space

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station but this this particular

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experiment uses those fruit flies

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because of all those characteristics I

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mentioned and because we have this long

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heritage of we know the complete genome

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of the fruit fly since the year 2000

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actually remember doing fruit fly

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experiments in seventh grade biology I

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think so I guess anybody can do them uh

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so what specifically are they looking

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for in this particular experiment so the

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main focus is immunity and it turns out

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that 77% of known human disease genes

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have a recognizable counterpart among

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the genetic code of fruit flies and 50%

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of protein sequences in the fruit fly

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have a mammalian analog so there's a

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huge you know despite the disparate

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difference in the evolutionary tree you

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might think of between fruit flies and

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humans there's a significant overlap of

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the genetic material and basic

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biological processes are similar so for

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example immunity so it does help to if

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we can understand how immune processes

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are affected by microgravity and we

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might be able to extend that to humans

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and even more deeper than that

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you know microgravity acts as such a

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change in environment that it can it has

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a potential to change basic

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formation transfer processes that which

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is what chromosomes do they tell the new

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organisms how to create proteins that

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are fundamental for all aspects of life

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so there might be some basic discoveries

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yet to be made and fruit fly would be an

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easy model organism for those to be made

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in okay well what do they do the

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astronauts actually have to do with the

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fruit flies well in fact one of the

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things that samantha is doing today is

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feeding the fruit flies we have to

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change out the food trays every five

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days and it turns out this is pretty

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important we have to keep it on schedule

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for roughly a 20-day growing cycle

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so every five days we have to change out

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these food trays and give them fresh

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food okay I doesn't sound too

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labor-intensive well it's it it actually

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takes longer than you might think it's

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about a four hour activity over I think

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doing that actually here okay so there

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are several there are two main habitats

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one is just a micro G habitat for the

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fruit flies and another is a centrifuge

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which is simulating 1g so this acts as a

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control half of the fruit flies are in

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the suit centrifuge experiencing the

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gravity that we experience on earth and

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the other half are not in the centrifuge

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so they're experiencing microgravity and

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the radiation environment so the purpose

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of this control is to make sure that

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we're not confusing microgravity effects

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with perhaps radiation effects or other