the.com/drosophila
The fruit fly that owes science rent — it built modern genetics on its tiny back.
means A small fruit fly, especially the species Drosophila melanogaster, prized as a laboratory organism for studying genetics and heredity.
from From Greek drosos, 'dew,' plus philos, 'loving' — literally 'dew-lover,' a name early naturalists gave the fly for its habit of hovering around overripe, moist, fermenting fruit rather than actual dew. The genus name was coined in the early 1800s, long before anyone guessed this dew-loving speck would end up mapping chromosomes and winning Nobel Prizes for other people.
- genome size
- about 140 million base pairs, tiny yet mighty
- shared genes
- roughly 60 percent match human disease genes
- nobel count
- six prizes trace directly back to this fly
- lifespan
- full life cycle in just ten days