X-Message-Number: 8178
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 03:01:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Skrecky <>
Subject: 8'th update on fly longevity experiments 

    This is the eighth update on my fly experiments. The highest survival
 is now in the sage bottle (62%). followed by cumin & nicotinamide at 43%
 and basil at 40%. With a 25% survival the control bottle is now doing
 better than many others. The high attrition between the day 31 and 42
 census I attribute mostly to aging. The flies for this run were derived
 from old breeding bottles, which were originally started on February
 5'th. Since this run was started on March 24'th, some of the flies may
 have been already middle aged by then. For an explanation of the
 bracketed numbers please refer to the text below.

 Second Run                   Survival
 Supplement         DAY 11  DAY 21 DAY 31 DAY 42
 Control              63%     63%    38%    25%(38%)
 Nicotinamide         86      86     86     43 (86)
 Coenzyme Q10        100     100     57      0
 Nicotinamide/CoQ10   86      57     29      0
 Acetylcarnitine      86      63     38     12
 ALC/COQ10           100      86     43     14
 Basil                80      80     80     40 (80)
 Bromelain            78      67     56     11
 Caraway              67      33     17     17
 Chlorophyll         100     100     67     14 (67)
 Cloves               83      86     57      0
 Cumin               100      57     71     43 (50)
 Curcumin             71      57     29     14
 Dextromethorphan     83      83     67     33
 Fenugreek            80      80     40     20 (60)
 Ginger               67      17      0      0
 Green Tea           100      83     67     33
 Leucoanthocyanins    86      86     57     14
 Mace                 71      57     29      0
 Nutmeg               71      57     57     29 (57)
 Oregano              88      50     25      0
 Rosemary             90      90     64     10 (70)
 Sage                100      75     75     62
 Thyme               100      88     25     12 (62)

    One major defect in this run is a phenonmina I call crack trapping.
 This occurs because I added less water to the fly food than during the
 first run. When the food further dries it pulls away from the side of the
 bottle and opens up a narrow crevasse or crack that flies seem to get
 trapped in and then die. I do not know whether these would have died or
 not if more water had been added, so to document this uncertainty I have
 indicated what the survival would be if all trapped flies were regarded
 as being still alive. The adjusted survival figuare is given in brackets.
 In many bottles no flies were trapped, but in the basil, chlorophyll,
 fenugreek, nicotinamide, rosemary & thyme bottles this is a major
 confounding variable.
    The reason this happened was due to my following the instructions on
 the fly food package - silly me. This recommended that equal volumes of
 4-24 medium and water be added together, which is what I did in the first
 run, where no crack trapping occurred. However it also advised that in
 large bottles, with larger amounts of medium being used, that less water
 be used. I discovered the reason for this addendum the hard way. Adding
 too much water to breeding bottles results in flies drowning as pools of
 water form after a lot of breeding has occurred and used up much of the
 medium. It seems that flies themselves have a smaller percentage water
 than that in the medium. This worry does not apply to my life span test
 bottles, since enough taurine larvicide is added to prevent any breeding.
 The moral seems to be to add less water to breeding bottles, but continue
 using a 1-to-1 food/water volume ratio for test bottles. Live and learn.

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