A Genetically Engineered Fly That Can Smell Light

An anonymous reader writes "It sounds like a cool — if somewhat pointless — super-powered insect: a fly that can smell light! Researchers added a light-sensitive protein to a fruit fly's olfactory neurons, which caused the neurons to fire when the fly was exposed to a certain wavelength of blue light. Adding the protein specifically to neurons that respond to good smells, like bananas, makes for a light-seeking fly."

Re:But can we wipe out pest bugs by making them...

[Cryacin]

Harry! Harry! Don't look into the light!!!

I can't help it... it's sooo beautifull!!!!

zzzzzzzzzttt

Re:

[X0563511]

We'd need to make sure they overwhelm the "normal" population fast enough that their dying wouldn't self-select them right out of the gene pool. This is contradictory :)

What a wasted opportunity

[Shadow of Eternity]

They could've made them think a wavelength smells terrible and then sold fly repellant lightbulbs.

Re:

[Hazza64]

No, you see the trick is to get them attracted to light. THEN they will land on those inefficient 80W bulbs attempting to eat it and burn their 'mouths' and feet in the process.

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[nametaken]

I'm gunna go out on a limb and guess this new suicide breed will not overtake the existing non-suicidal flies in the process of natural selection. Call me Nostradamus. ;)

Re:

[mr_mischief]

Sorry, but the name "Nostradomus" is also taken.

Re:

[GundamFan]

Nostradumbass on the other hand is, surprisingly, available.

Re:

[mr_mischief]

You're kidding! I thought that'd be one of the first misspellings to be snatched up, especially on Slashdot!

Wait... user 205075 [slashdot.org]. You really were kidding.

Oddly enough, "Nostradomus" actually isn't a Slashdot account despite how often that spelling appears in the comments. I could have sworn it would.

Re:What a wasted opportunity

[amicusNYCL]

Right, and all they have to do is genetically engineer all the flies in the world, or at least every population of them.

Re:What a wasted opportunity

[AK Marc]

Well? I'm waiting.

Re:

[tpwch]

Well think about it. How many generations does it take for a favorable gene to spread trough the population? Give the flies another favorable gene as well as the smell gene, then set them loose to make babies. I read somewhere that it takes 3000-5000 years for humans, but fly generations are much shorter, so maybe we could reap the advantages in our lifetime.

Re:What a wasted opportunity

[R3d M3rcury]

That's for favorable genes. I believe that, from the fly's point-of-view, believing that blue light is food (and potentially causing it to fly into a human-produced trap) would be all that favorable.

Re:

[kabloom]

That's why he thinks that a fly-repellant-light gene would fare better.

Re:

[EdIII]

You're thinking about it all wrong.

You set up fly traps that repel the genetically modified flies. What you end up with is flies that are genetically predisposed to stay away from the areas we designate. Assuming the genetic modifications don't have any other adverse affects I would say it would be a great idea. We could have a situation develop where flies stay away from us and yet are still part of the environment and the food chain.

Re:

[Paradigma11]

You're thinking about it all wrong.

You set up fly traps that repel the genetically modified flies. What you end up with is flies that are genetically predisposed to stay away from the areas we designate. Assuming the genetic modifications don't have any other adverse affects I would say it would be a great idea. We could have a situation develop where flies stay away from us and yet are still part of the environment and the food chain.

Yes, but you would also have to increase the fitness of your engineered flies. make them attracted to a certain wavelength and place nutrition at lamps with this wavelength. also make them sexually compatible, but genetically dominant to the rest of the fly population.

Re:

[tpwch]

Which is why I wrote that they should insert another favorable gene as well, to increase the chances of those individuals genes being spread.

Re:

[mhelander]

How do you couple them, preventing the spread of the one without the other?

Re:

[Crudely_Indecent]

You're looking at it the wrong way....

Getting pestered at the campsite? Crack a special-wavelength-blue glowstick and toss it into a neighboring campsite. Go fetch!

small thinking

[electrosoccertux]

That's a great idea, then it never comes to market because the university owns the patent and they want too much for the exclusive royalties, if you can even pin them down for such a contract. How are you going to come up with such a document anyways without coughing up all the dough to pay a patent lawyer to write the hundred++ page document? And how are you going to get that dough in the first place. It's much easier to magically wave your hand and say it can happen.

No, you do what we did, which is what a

Re:

[Shadow of Eternity]

And then the gorillas die in winter?

IOW

[aBaldrich]

In other words, it can see with its nose.

Re:IOW

[Kenshin]

Next test subject: Toucan Sam.

Re:

[by (1706743)]

Furthermore, if it were truly "smelling" light, then wouldn't it be able to smell objects obscured from vision (this being a contradiction, barring pathological situations)? As the saying goes, I smell a rat...

Re:

[tenco]

That's the part where "super powered" comes into play.

Close...

[toppavak]

It would be more accurate to say that the flies perceive light that falls on those receptors fairly non-specifically as smell. To 'see' implies perception of light, but the lack of optics and the low-level organization that exists in photoreceptors, it's unlikely that the flies can perceive anything more detailed than a burst of smell when a light comes on.

Re:

[spazdor]

it can see with its nose.

Then how does it smell?

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[RenderSeven]

Then how does it smell?

Terrible! Da dum dum.

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[treeves]

With its ears, of course.

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[xanadu113]

I can do that too, when appropriately lysergically enhanced... =)

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[h4rr4r]

They put little blindfolds on them, obviously.

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[nut]

Correct. Flies are already light-seeking diurnal creatures. If you want a fly to fly out of the house at night, turn on the porch light and turn off the inside lights.

I hope they corrected for this in their experiment - and I also wonder how they did it.

Re:

[RadioElectric]

Yeah, if only there were some place [frontiersin.org] where scientists would publish their research saying exactly what they did and what they found.

They did account for that.

Great Work

[Nuskrad]

Great work guys. You just invented moths.

Re:

[WindShadow]

There goes the patent, clearly prior art.

Re:

[haxney]

No, they invented drugs for flies. If you really want to smell light, head down to your local acid dealer.

Great news

[roman_mir]

Finally, we have been able to achieve what we always needed: flies that can compete with human art critics.

On the other hand these flies are not as advanced as Arizona lawmakers, who apparently can feel if one is an illegal alien by 'looking at brands of shoes' (incidentally, will this not force the cops to hire a disproportional number of gays into service?)

Re:

[Brad1138]

"Arizona Lawmakers"

Nation wide ~65% approval rating for Arizona law, 70+% approval not counting Hispanics.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Slavery had great approval ratings for a long time. I take it you supported that, as well?

Re:

[Brad1138]

Slavery had great approval ratings for a long time. I take it you supported that, as well?

No, I support people who are here illegally being sent back home so they can get legitimately. There is absolutely no correlation with slavery. Why do people have a problem with punishing people for breaking the law. Try to sneak into Mexico and see how you are treated, you will probably end up dead.

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[rollercoaster375]

Why on earth would you not count hispanics?

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[Idiomatick]

The law is racist, he's just trying to be consistent.

Re:

[Brad1138]

How is the law racist? If you are here ILLEGALLY you have done something ILLEGAL and should be punished for it. Moron.

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[Idiomatick]

AFAIK it isn't illegal to be hispanic.

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[Brad1138]

Why on earth would you not count hispanics?

Because in Arizona, the vast majority of illegals are Hispanics. Obviously they aren't going to vote against themselves, they skew the results.

Smell-o-vision

[Brad1138]

Smell-o-Vision, here we come...

Re:

[hort_wort]

Yeah yeah, but for now we have to ask flies what the sexy girl pictures smell like.

"Hey Harvey, what about this one?"
*Bzzzztttttt*
"Bananas you say? I figure she'd be more strawberries than bananas."

Re:

[EdIII]

"Bananas you say? I figure she'd be more strawberries than bananas."

Harvey was doing you a solid.

I would much rather steer towards the girls associated with strawberries than the "girls" associated with bananas.

Someone said it before ;)

[Longjmp]

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. heh.

Waste of money

[miggyb]

I could have done that same research with $200 worth of drugs.

Ok then....

[3seas]

... The Fly: help me, help me. I'm so hungry and light is not filling.

Re:

[mr_mischief]

They should have made it a flavor rather than a scent. Then they could license it to Miller Brewing.

Problem now is

[fustakrakich]

they can't smell shit from shinola

So Fricken Laser Guided....

[sbeckstead]

So what you are saying here is that if we can make an explosive small enough we can create laser guided flies that will seek out the spot and land and detonate. Should be good for taking off a nose or ear at least. Better yet a human only skin absorb-able poison that you can dip the fly into then give the target a coating of that light. Bingo one dead target and the murder weapon wings it way to oblivion.

Re:

[Jeremi]

So what you are saying here is that if we can make an explosive small enough we can create laser guided flies that will seek out the spot and land and detonate.

Wouldn't they be more likely to fly towards the laser's source? Probably not what you want....

Re:

[sbeckstead]

The laser's source is largely invisible, while the reflected light from the surface of a person's skin has been tinged to a slightly different wavelength and made less coherent, this is the wavelength you tune the fly to.

New movie line

[gyrogeerloose]

"I love the smell of blue in the morning..."

Smile away!

[Yo,dog!]

Man, I could smell your feet a mile away!
Smile away!

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[Dragoniz3r]

Smelly action at a distance.

Seeing is perceiving

[RobinEggs]

It's not like "sight" and "smell" go into totally separate processing units along totally separate conductors: both signals still went through a nerve and into a little fly brain.

All they did was get a perception of light to travel into the brain on a different bundle of almost identical nerves. What's the big deal? Haven't these people ever seen the Matrix? If you perceive it, you perceive it; for most purposes it doesn't make a damn bit of difference how the perception got into your brain.

Re:

[ZeroExistenZ]

it doesn't make a damn bit of difference how the perception got into your brain.

brb, getting some perception in my brain with a pole.

Bonus points...

[boredsenseless]

if they call it "smision."

I've been lighting farts for years....

[Bob_Who]

...its smells so bright it makes your eyes water.

but....

[santax]

But... why?

Prior art

[rwyoder]

Back in my mis-spent youth, a hit of blotter acid was all we needed to smell light, hear colors, and see sounds.

So what you're saying..

[tpstigers]

..is that the fly got Jeff Goldblum's nose.

What Smells?

[Deaths Proxy]

* sniffs the air * What smells like blue?

Gene splicing

[norppalaho]

... but how many asses it has?

Lame Superpowers

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

.....this is what happens when you let Grant Morrison reboot nature.

Falling down face first into the confusion

[DynaSoar]

It is an exceedingly idiotic collection of assumptions and ignorance too profound to be able to recognize from the inside. There's not a shred of evidence saying that if a neuron has some perceptual tricera input, the signal would be anything other than the same old fluctuating ion densities. It certainly would not generate a signal part light-responsive and have that push through the neuron that's essentially unrelated. Just as any other increased signal impinging on a neuron causes it to fire more proport

This is cool but...

[Sentrion]

It would be so much cooler if they embedded a chip in the fly and became the first to transmit a virus from a PC to an insect that smells light. http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/05/26/1214214/Scientist-Infects-Self-With-Computer-Virus?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot) [slashdot.org]

Insect zapper

[akayani]

"The company, owned by Apple, has also taken out a patent on a very specific frequency of insect zapper. While apologising for the accidental release of the flies, Jobs restated the company's pledge to make 1billion iZappers which are iLink compatible with your iHouse software. Press Buy Now on your iCare."

An answer to epistemological questions

[Clueless Nick]

or a symptom of synaesthesia? Now we will know if orange smells like orange.

That's nothing, I know this guy

[ZeroExistenZ]

I know this engineer who can feel colours: in his experience certain sensations would invoke colours.

He can't really explain or verbalize it and while he tries to he is at lost for words. When I inquire it's just a "strong association" he insists it's a physical experience and not so much "association".
You often hear him say "this feels yellow" something in that fashion.

Re:

[JLangbridge]

I knew somebody with that; he could read words, like just about anyone, but each letter had a colour. Fill a whitebord with hundreds of letter "O"s, and add one Q, and he could find it instantly, it was the letter that was a different colour from the rest. His parents remember him saying "Hey, I didn't know you could change the colour of F, just by adding a line!" (i.e. turning it into E). That was their wake up call, and he was diagnosed with synaesthesia a few weeks later.

Re:

[Njoyda Sauce]

It's called synesthesia.
http://www.livescience.com/health/050222_synesthesia.html [livescience.com]

Zap!

[flyingfsck]

Cool, now these flies will head straight to the nearest bug zapper...

SirVirtual

[SirVirtual]

I keeps seeing a little tiny Icarus head on a fly's body flying to the sun crying "help me help meeeeee....."

Philosophical: does it see or smell light?

[noidentity]

Is it smelling light, or seeing it? Is sight the ability of an organism to detect photons hitting it, or simply how an organism perceives some sort of physical stimulus? The latter seems less useful, since it would allow sight, smell, touch to all refer to the same physical stimulus.

Possible Next Project

[LifesABeach]

Maybe work on a therapy that would mend tissue cell DNA, and RNA?

That's nothing

[dbrossard]

My dad can hear pudding

Fish next

[Cstryon]

Now they need to genetically engineer fish to consume crude oil. It may mess up the future accountability issue, but it sure can save a lot of animal life.

Dialogue

[northernfrights]

Fly 1: "Whoa man, what smells like fresh bananas? I'm starving"
Fly 2: "We're flying over a river right now..."
Fly 1: "I know, do you smell it?"
Fly 2: "Dude, how much dog s*** did you eat last night?"

I for one, too

[zooblethorpe]

Well, I, for one, am busy trying to figure out where the light blue bananas are...

Cheers,

Re:I for one

[PopeRatzo]

A fly that can smell light? Big deal.

My wife says that my feet smell evil.

Re:

[denmarkw00t]

Seriously, mod this man UP. I understand that every insect/alien/Ballmer thread has an "I for one" post, but to be labeled redundant as the first of it's kind in a thread is ridiculous.

I, for one, DO NOT welcome our redundant-modding moderators.