Boffins create super flies that need almost no sleep
In a scientific triumph whose significance would be difficult to exaggerate, American boffins have managed to create a breed of special flies which require hardly any sleep. The wakeful insects are the brainchild of Paul Shaw, PhD, of the Washington University in St Louis (WUSTL). According to WUSTL, "Shaw's lab was the first to …
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Great!!
Just what we need here in Australia, flies that never sleep!
Stone the flaming crows!
Genitic Improvement of Flies
All we need now is "a fly that can get through the open half of a half-open window" and "an off switch for small children".
RIP Mr Adams
Just what we needed
an end to the misery of dozy flies. Thank you science.
Mind you, are these flies Spanish? If you powder 'em and smoke 'em, will they keep you up all night, nudge nudge!
Drug addiction?
"Overall, the flies are able to perform better than they should, given how much sleep they miss," says Shaw's fellow fly-breeder Laurent Seugnet. "That makes it tempting to speculate that insomnia is like drug addiction."
Does this mean that drug addiction allows one to perform better than expected? Is this particular boffin implying that I should go out and smoke some crack in order to improve my performance at work?
SuperFly
The Vancouver Public Library has a film called, from memory, "Superfly" by a group called "films for the humanities & sciences", a brit group, I think. The fruit fly, Drosophila Melanogaster, carried much of the original studies on evolution and genetics in the labs of Thomas Morgan and was, IIRC, the species from which the homeobox genes studies and discoveries originated. It's a model species like the mouse and a portal for translation of genetic and evolution studies to the public sphere. Don't know if it's been subjected to studies of illicit drug use.
Huh !
will perform better ??
what do they perform ? they fly to shit and lay eggs then go eat.
if it was a honey bee i would understand the term "perform"
Superfly?
Why did I immediately picture a fly with a huge 'fro when I read that?
Mine's the one with the Shaft DVD in the pocket.
A what now?
"experts in neurodegeneration in flies"
Do they ever wake up thinking "I've wasted my life..." ?
Purpose at last!
So - if they are willing to pay some cretin staggering amounts of money to breed sleepless flies, then surely, surely, someone in this world will employ me as a professional cunnilinguist! I knew there is a God!! Now to my resume'...
Hah, first the termites, now the superflies?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31M0j96uYPs
And the termites already learned to drive a car! Can you imagine how much knowledge these flies would be able to cram into their brain? Insectoid overlords, indeed!
* Maybe it's just a big marketing ploy, to sell more insecticide...
joecartoon
Cant see how no one has mentioned the original super fly
http://joecartoon.atom.com/cartoons/channel/4-super_fly
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