Scientists know a lot about fly sex. Maybe too much. We know how male fruit flies woo their mates. We’ve picked apart the seminal fluid to study all of the molecules in it. We know what happens to the female after sex–and how it can even make her sick. And we know what happens to … Continue reading
Hello world. It’s been a while (again) since I’ve posted on here. Since my last post there’s been a hurricane, followed by me moving to New York City. Talk about bad timing. I also started a new job. Again, pretty bad timing. But now that things have settled down a bit, it’s time to get back to … Continue reading
Today, I’m going to write about everyone’s favorite kind of sperm: giant. Who makes giant sperm? It’s not who you might think. The giants of the animal kingdom–whales, elephants–make sperm that are very similar to that of men and mice. Tiny. It’s the little guys who make the biggest sperm. In fact, as I’ve pointed … Continue reading
Every species has some genes that never existed before in evolutionary history, but where do new genes come from? Many new genes are made by copy-and-paste: old genes get copied, rearranged and pasted together with parts of other genes, plus some good ol’ junk DNA. The result: a piece of DNA that usually gets tossed … Continue reading
While I don’t doubt that you have all been eagerly awaiting an update to my ‘Publications’ page, some of you may not have noticed that it has finally arrived. After only about 5 and half years in graduate school, I finally have my very own first-author research article. Why did it take so long? Believe … Continue reading
Wolbachia are a type of bacteria that live inside the cells of many animals, but mostly insects. They are passed on from mother to child through the mother’s eggs. They can often be bad for the insect host: they might kill all male offspring, destroy the host’s gonads, or make it harder for the host … Continue reading
It’s a love story for the ages. Boy meets girl, boy smells the sweet scent of phenylacetaldehyde emanating from the nearby rotting fruit, boy and girl live happily together…for about 20 minutes. Hey, flies don’t bother with small talk; they just get right down to it. But back to the smelly fruit: scientists have discovered … Continue reading
When males are competing with each other for fertilization of a female’s eggs, which counts more: the number of sperm, or the size of each sperm? You might wonder why a guy can’t have it all but, alas, nature does make restrictions on how much energy one can devote to pumping out sperm. So which … Continue reading
Ladies, how much influence do your (male) mates have over you? If people are anything like insects, it might be more than you realize. Thankfully, humans aren’t quite insects. In the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), males have a considerable amount of control over their mates. And they keep exerting their control long after they’ve moved on … Continue reading
Molecular Love (and other facts of life) 