“Make sure you use flies that haven’t bred before,” says Christina Lim, 28, who spent years breeding and feeding fruit flies at the NASA Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif., in preparation for the insects’ 2017 flight to the International Space Station. Female fruit flies become sexually active eight to 10 hours after they hatch. Virgin females are pale and slightly shinier; Lim says they look almost wet, “like a puppy after it’s born.”In many ways, fruit flies resemble humans at a cellular and genetic level. When you’re ready to make more flies, anesthetize your flies again and add healthy males in with virgin females (usually in a one-to-three ratio). Fruit flies like to multiply; females can lay up to 100 eggs a day.

Source: International New York Times August 17, 2021 09:00 UTC