X-Message-Number: 8132
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 04:19:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Skrecky <>
Subject: CRYONICS 7'th update on fly longevity experiments 

    This is the seventh update on my fly experiments. There no longer
 exist any bottles maintaining 100% survival. Neglecting the mortality
 which occured before the day 11 census, only the nicotinamide and basil
 bottles have avoided further attrition. The highest survival is now the
 nicotinamide bottle at 86%, followed by basil at 80% and sage at 75%.

 Second Run            Survival
 Supplement         DAY 11  DAY 21 DAY 31
 Control              63%     63%    38%
 Nicotinamide         86      86     86
 Coenzyme Q10        100     100     57
 Nicotinamide/CoQ10   86      57     29
 Acetylcarnitine      86      63     38
 ALC/COQ10           100      86     43
 Basil                80      80     80
 Bromelain            78      67     56
 Caraway              67      33     17
 Chlorophyll         100     100     67
 Cloves               83      86     57
 Cumin               100      57     71
 Curcumin             71      57     29
 Dextromethorphan     83      83     67
 Fenugreek            80      80     40
 Ginger               67      17      0
 Green Tea           100      83     67
 Leucoanthocyanins    86      86     57
 Mace                 71      57     29
 Nutmeg               71      57     57
 Oregano              88      50     25
 Rosemary             90      90     64
 Sage                100      75     75
 Thyme               100      88     25

    The high recent attrition in the thyme bottle might not be due to
 either aging, disease or any deleterious effect of thyme. Unfortunately
 the fly food at the bottom of the thyme bottle has dried out a bit and
 pulled away from the bottle, leaving a narrow crack where all of the new
 fly corpses were found. When I start my third run I will be adding a bit
 more water to the fly food so as to prevent this. This "crack trapping"
 of flies might also account for the recent deaths in the rosemary bottle
 as well.
    I have started several new breeding bottles with added thyme to act as
 a bactericide. The old breeding bottles initially were plugged by cotton,
 before I replaced these with cardboard. It is possible that bacteria
 might have been admitted through the cotton. The new breeding bottles
 were prepared under reasonably clean conditions. All bottles I use are
 first heated in an oven to sterilize them and the tools used to prepare
 the fly food are all washed with alcohol beforehand.
    One of the dead flies in the day 21 census in the cumin bottle has
 done a lazarus and come back to life. I try to shake the bottles to see
 if any flies are playing possum, but this does not always work.
    One of the flies in the chlorophyll bottle has disappeared! There is
 so much chlorophyll in this bottle that the flyfood appears black rather
 than green and it is very hard to spot the little buggars. I tried my
 best but only 6 of the 7 flies originally in the bottle were visible.
    All the flies in the ginger bottle are now dead. I suspect they died
 of toxic effects associated with either a ginger overdose or perhaps due
 to aflatoxin contamination.
    I find it difficult to even speculate why the combination of
 nicotinamide and coenzyme Q10 resulted in a lower survival than either
 supplement taken individually. Perhaps the 7 flies in this bottle were
 just "unlucky". The fact I am using small numbers of flies means some
 bottles statistically are going to underperform for no reason at all.
 Only the law of large numbers can cure this problem, but if I use 100
 flies to screen each supplement this experiment will grind to a halt. The
 nicotinamde bottle now maintains the highest survival with 6 alive and
 only 1 dead. Only time will tell whether either nicotinamide, basil or
 any other supplement will significantly outperform the controls in the
 long run. In any case before one can believe any good results,
 replications using larger numbers of flies will be necessary.
    In a philosophical moment I had been speculating why longevity
 experiments using flies have not been done testing the effect of
 thousands of supplements already. It is not like it is a lot of trouble.
 The local fly lab that I got my flies from probably has millions of flies
 in bottles. Every large university on this continent has a fly lab with
 similar capabilities. It would take only a trivial fraction of these
 resources to crack open the mechanisms of fly (if not human) aging by a
 brute force approach. Why hasn't it happened?
    Whatever the reason, I intend to continue plugging away until I have
 at least doubled fly life spans. If necessary I'll test hundreds of
 supplements myself to achieve this.

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