http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/50640/title/Fruit_flies_can_be_alcoholics_too
By Laura Sanders
Many studies have shown that fruit flies like many humans have a tendency to alcohol addiction. Since Fruit flies are such simple organisms they are an easy way to study the effects of alcoholism without all of the complicated details there are with humans. It shows many major psychological effects along with hurting its coordination greatly, as shown in the video in the link. Studies have also shown that fruit flies prefer alcohol to pure water because when given the same amount of each they finish the alcohol way faster. Then they found that over five days the booze was slurped down increasingly faster. They also found that flies that had been drinking for less time like two days didn’t like strong booze whereas the ones who had been drinking for five days preferred the stronger ones. Even when the alcohol was mixed with something that most fruit flies don’t like the ones who were “alcoholics” still drank it. The last test the scientist preformed showed that once you are an alcoholic you are one for life, they took a fly who had been drinking hard liquor for five days and didn’t give him alcohol for three days, immediately after this dry period the fly returned to it’s peak levels of drinking. While they haven’t yet really discovered anything we didn’t know about alcoholism in the future the fruit flies could help greatly. For example the fruit flies could help scientist discover how to quickly track down the genes of alcoholism.
I thought this article was kind of entertaining but at the same time interesting. I thought the article was very well written and really captivated the reader, plus I thought it was a really good idea to put a video of a drunk fly at the end because it made the reader even more interested.
This was a very well analyzed review. The topic, the title in particular, caught my interest at once. Amelia did a good job at slimming the article down to a well crafted review that was easy to follow, but still including all the necessary details. I liked how it was very to the point. My main suggestion to improve this article would be to include the video that was apparently in the article, it sounds funny. Overall this was a really good job Amelia!
ReplyDeleteAmeilia did a lot of things that were positive throughout this article. She states the few main topics of the article and describes key facts that represent the. For example, “It shows the major psychological effects.” Right after she refers to the video presented in Laura Sander’s article for her evidence. Another strong point of Ameilia’s review was shown through her use of the article for comedic intellect. It kept the review interesting and very fun to read. Finally I liked the way she concluded each of her three paragraphs. I thought they were well thought out and strait to the point. Though Ameilia’s review was great it still had a few flaws. For one I thought her final paragraph lacked detail and analysis. I also thought that most of her ideas in the review could be expressed in better words. It looked like this review was written very fast and in a short period of time. Finally, I thought that she could have added some facts on how human alcoholics can be compared and contrasted to Fruit Fly alcoholics. Overall I thought Ameilia did a great job on her article review.
ReplyDeleteAmelia did a fabulous review of her article and exposed new information as well as tying the information back to humanity. Amelia's facts were very strong which helped her write the impressive review. As others mentioned, her article choice was very key because it immediately grabbed my attention and made me eager to read her article. It sounds so strange that such a simple organism can become addicted. Amelia kept her article serious and provided a good depth of facts for the reader but amelia could have also included the funny video that she talked about. In the end I could figure out what Amelia was trying to get across to the reader but I did have a little difficultly with her wording and description. I would recommend to Amelia that she would proof read one final time just to add those finishing touches to her writing. I was impressed at how Amelia could connect this article to life today because it seems like having little fruit flies being alcoholics wouldn't be so important but really they contribute a lot to the discovery of where the alcoholism genes come from. GOOD WORK AMELIA!!
ReplyDelete~Alex Adrian
In “Fruit Flies Can be Alcoholics Too,” scientists performed tests on fruit flies and discovered that flies preferentially ingest alcohol-containing food. The flies had to choose between plain food and food with ethanol in it, and they preferred the ethanol-containing food. Amelia chose an interesting subject, and her review was well-presented. The article’s subject captivated me at once, as I did not ever think that non-humans, let alone an insect, would like to ingest alcohol. The subject was interesting because fruit flies can be genetically manipulated and this may provide an animal model of alcoholism.
ReplyDeleteOne way the summary could have been improved was if Amelia had discussed why the scientists chose to use fruit flies. In addition, it would have been interesting to learn why fruit flies prefer alcohol.
Overall, knowing that fruit flies are alcoholics may impact people because it demonstrates that there may be a genetic basis for alcoholism and now I know that humans and flies are similar in some ways.
I thought that several arts of this article were very well presented. For example, the article was immediately eye catching, with a very interesting topic. Also, this article was very easy to understand, without large words that are hard to understand. Also, I couldn't find any problems with the grammar or spelling. However, I would have liked to know whether humans share many genes that are related to alcoholism with fruit flies, and whether the alcohol had any long term effects on the flies. I was very interested by the fact that fruit flies can also be addicted to alcohol.
ReplyDeleteThis review was very interesting and creative. I liked it because it was on a scientific topic that was not very common,but was relevant to a serious topic today: alcohol. I also liked the funny video included in Amelia's presentation. Lastly,I liked how interesting it was that flies preferred ethanol food over non-ethanol food. Two things that could have been improved were telling about how humans are related to the flies and what kind of side effects did both share. I was interested in the preference of alcohol over non-alcohol food in flies.
ReplyDelete