Quantification of food intake in Drosophila

Measurement of food intake in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is often necessary for studies of behaviour, nutrition and drug administration. There is no reliable and agreed method for measuring food intake of flies in undisturbed, steady state, and normal culture conditions. We report such a method, based on measurement of feeding frequency by proboscis-extension, validated by short-term measurements of food dye intake. We used the method to demonstrate that (a) female flies feed more frequently than males, (b) flies feed more often when housed in larger groups and (c) fly feeding varies at different times of the day. We also show that alterations in food intake are not induced by dietary restriction or by a null mutation of the fly insulin receptor substrate chico. In contrast, mutation of takeout increases food intake by increasing feeding frequency while mutation of ovoD increases food intake by increasing the volume of food consumed per proboscis-extension. This approach provides a practical and reliable method for quantification of food intake in Drosophila under normal, undisturbed culture conditions

Strained Differentiation: Negotiating Grief with Maternal Foundations in Laird Hunt’s Neverhome

The intertwinement of mother-daughter psyches throughout the early developmental process bonds maternal and filial parties up unto differentiation, at which point the child comes to understand her status as an individual and her mother’s status as a separate entity. However, when trauma is introduced midway through the differentiation process, this psychological phenomenon may be hindered, stunting the advanced personal development of the daughter. Abandoned by loss, she may subconsciously fall victim to repressive defenses, insufficient socialization, and destructive behaviors. In his 2016 novel Neverhome, Laird Hunt explores these psychological factors through a traumatized and unreliable female protagonist situated in the historical context of the early Civil War. A theoretically critical reading of Hunt’s text exposes the possible psychological tendencies of one such woman through a fictionalized narrative. Authoring plentiful examples of trauma responses, Hunt constructs his protagonist to serve as an archetype of the undifferentiated, unsocialized, and repressively-hindered daughter, and he then places her in a variety of high-stress environments within the plot to highlight her trauma-derived responses

Atmospheric transmission in the region from 16.75 to 20.95 micrometers

Atmospheric transmission analysis from solar spectrum observations covering 16.75 to 20.95 micrometers region on Bigelow Mountain, Arizon