RCTgo Forums
Race to 10,000 - Printable Version

+- RCTgo Forums (https://forums.rctgo.com)
+-- Forum: Everything Else (https://forums.rctgo.com/forum-19.html)
+--- Forum: All That (https://forums.rctgo.com/forum-20.html)
+---- Forum: Forum Games (https://forums.rctgo.com/forum-49.html)
+---- Thread: Race to 10,000 (/thread-81.html)



RE: Race to 10,000 - Jinglebells - May 2, 2014

3161 cheeze

2 times 31

31..


RE: Race to 10,000 - Blu - May 3, 2014

3132


RE: Race to 10,000 - Jinglebells - May 4, 2014

U mean 3163?

So now it is 3164


RE: Race to 10,000 - FlightToAtlantis - May 4, 2014

Now it is 3164.


RE: Race to 10,000 - the-big-cheese - May 4, 2014

Now it is 3165


RE: Race to 10,000 - Jinglebells - May 4, 2014

I'm bored, tell me a story with exactly 3165!! Words


RE: Race to 10,000 - FlightToAtlantis - May 5, 2014

3166, and seeing as it's now 3166, here is your story with 3166 (according to Microsoft Word) words.
I hope you found it as exciting as I did:



Wildtype fruit flies are yellow-brown, with brick red eyes and transverse black rings across the abdomen. They exhibit sexual dimorphism: females are about 2.5 millimeters (0.098 in) long; males are slightly smaller with darker backs. Males are easily distinguished from females based on colour differences, with a distinct black patch at the abdomen, less noticeable in recently emerged flies (see fig.), and the sexcombs (a row of dark bristles on the tarsus of the first leg). Furthermore, males have a cluster of spiky hairs (claspers) surrounding the reproducing parts used to attach to the female during mating. There are extensive images at FlyBase.[3]
Life cycle and reproduction
Egg of D. melanogaster

The D. melanogaster lifespan is about 30 days at 29 °C (84 °F). It had been recorded that their lifespan can be increased to 3 months.[4]

The developmental period for Drosophila melanogaster varies with temperature, as with many ectothermic species. The shortest development time (egg to adult), 7 days, is achieved at 28 °C (82 °F).[5][6] Development times increase at higher temperatures (11 days at 30 °C or 86 °F) due to heat stress. Under ideal conditions, the development time at 25 °C (77 °F) is 8.5 days,[5][6][7] at 18 °C (64 °F) it takes 19 days[5][6] and at 12 °C (54 °F) it takes over 50 days.[5][6] Under crowded conditions, development time increases,[8] while the emerging flies are smaller.[8][9] Females lay some 400 eggs (embryos), about five at a time, into rotting fruit or other suitable material such as decaying mushrooms and sap fluxes. The eggs, which are about 0.5 millimetres long, hatch after 12–15 hours (at 25 °C or 77 °F).[5][6] The resulting larvae grow for about 4 days (at 25 °C) while molting twice (into 2nd- and 3rd-instar larvae), at about 24 and 48 h after hatching.[5][6] During this time, they feed on the microorganisms that decompose the fruit, as well as on the sugar of the fruit itself. Then the larvae encapsulate in the puparium and undergo a four-day-long metamorphosis (at 25 °C), after which the adults eclose (emerge).[5][6]
Mating fruit flies. Note the sex combs on the forelegs of the male (insert)

Females become receptive to courting males at about 8–12 hours after emergence.[10] The female fruit fly prefers a shorter duration when it comes to sex. Males, on the other hand, prefer it to last longer.[11] Males perform a sequence of five behavioral patterns to court females. First, males orient themselves while playing a courtship song by horizontally extending and vibrating their wings. Soon after, the male positions itself at the rear of the female's abdomen in a low posture to tap and lick the female genitalia. Finally, the male curls its abdomen, and attempts copulation. Females can reject males by moving away, kicking and extruding their ovipositor. Copulation lasts around 15–20 minutes,[12] during which males transfer a few hundred very long (1.76 mm) sperm cells in seminal fluid to the female.[13] Females store the sperm in a tubular receptacle and in two mushroom-shaped spermathecae, sperm from multiple matings compete for fertilization. A last male precedence is believed to exist in which the last male to mate with a female sires approximately 80% of her offspring. This precedence was found to occur through displacement and incapacitation.[14] The displacement is attributed to sperm handling by the female fly as multiple matings are conducted and is most significant during the first 1–2 days after copulation. Displacement from the seminal receptacle is more significant than displacement from the spermathecae.[14] Incapacitation of first male sperm by second male sperm becomes significant 2–7 days after copulation. The seminal fluid of the second male is believed to be responsible for this incapacitation mechanism (without removal of first male sperm) which takes effect before fertilization occurs.[14] The delay in effectiveness of the incapacitation mechanism is believed to be a protective mechanism that prevents a male fly from incapacitating its own sperm should it mate with the same female fly repetitively.[14]

D. melanogaster is often used for life extension studies. Beginning in 1980, Michael R. Rose conducted a groundbreaking study in experimental evolution resulting in "Methuselah" flies which had roughly double the lifespan of a wild-type fruit fly. More recently, particular genes such as the INDY gene have been identified which are purported to increase lifespan when mutated.
History of use in genetic analysis
Lab cultures

Drosophila melanogaster was among the first organisms used for genetic analysis, and today it is one of the most widely used and genetically best-known of all eukaryotic organisms. All organisms use common genetic systems; therefore, comprehending processes such as transcription and replication in fruit flies helps in understanding these processes in other eukaryotes, including humans.[15]

Charles W. Woodworth is credited with being the first to breed Drosophila in quantity and for suggesting to W. E. Castle that they might be used for genetic research during his time at Harvard University.

Thomas Hunt Morgan began using fruit flies in experimental studies of heredity at Columbia University in 1910. His laboratory was located on the top floor of Schermerhorn Hall, which became known as the Fly Room. The Fly Room was cramped with eight desks, each occupied by students and their experiments. They started off experiments using milk bottles to rear the fruit flies and handheld lenses for observing their traits. The lenses were later replaced by microscopes, which enhanced their observations. The Fly Room was the source of some of the most important research in the history of biology. Morgan and his students eventually elucidated many basic principles of heredity, including sex-linked inheritance, epistasis, multiple alleles, and gene mapping.[15]

"Thomas Hunt Morgan and colleagues extended Mendel's work by describing X-linked inheritance and by showing that genes located on the same chromosome do not show independent assortment. Studies of X-linked traits helped confirm that genes are found on chromosomes, while studies of linked traits led to the first maps showing the locations of genetic loci on chromosomes" (Freman 214). The first maps of Drosophila chromosomes were completed by Alfred Sturtevant.
Model organism in genetics
D. melanogaster types (clockwise): brown eyes with black body, cinnabar eyes, sepia eyes with ebony body, vermilion eyes, white eyes, and wild-type eyes with yellow body

Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most studied organisms in biological research, particularly in genetics and developmental biology. There are several reasons:

Its care and culture requires little equipment and uses little space even when using large cultures, and the overall cost is low.
It is small and easy to grow in the laboratory and their morphology is easy to identify once they are anesthetized (usually with ether, carbon dioxide gas, by cooling them, or with products like FlyNap)
It has a short generation time (about 10 days at room temperature) so several generations can be studied within a few weeks.
It has a high fecundity (females lay up to 100 eggs per day, and perhaps 2000 in a lifetime).[2]
Males and females are readily distinguished and virgin females are easily isolated, facilitating genetic crossing.
The mature larvae show giant chromosomes in the salivary glands called polytene chromosomes—"puffs" indicate regions of transcription and hence gene activity.
It has only four pairs of chromosomes: three autosomes, and one sex chromosome.
Males do not show meiotic recombination, facilitating genetic studies.
Recessive lethal "balancer chromosomes" carrying visible genetic markers can be used to keep stocks of lethal alleles in a heterozygous state without recombination due to multiple inversions in the balancer.
Genetic transformation techniques have been available since 1987.
Its complete genome was sequenced and first published in 2000.[16]

Genetic markers

Genetic markers are commonly used in Drosophila research, for example within balancer chromosomes or P-element inserts, and most phenotypes are easily identifiable either with the naked eye or under a microscope. In the list of example common markers below, the allele symbol is followed by the name of the gene affected and a description of its phenotype. (Note: Recessive alleles are in lower case, while dominant alleles are capitalised.)

Cy1: Curly; The wings curve away from the body, flight may be somewhat impaired.
e1: ebony; Black body and wings (heterozygotes are also visibly darker than wild type).
Sb1: stubble; Bristles are shorter and thicker than wild type.
w1: white; Eyes lack pigmentation and appear white.
y1: yellow; Body pigmentation and wings appear yellow. This is the fly analog of albinism.

Drosophila genes are traditionally named after the phenotype they cause when mutated. For example, the absence of a particular gene in Drosophila will result in a mutant embryo that does not develop a heart. Scientists have thus called this gene tinman, named after the Oz character of the same name.[17] This system of nomenclature results in a wider range of gene names than in other organisms.
Genome
D. melanogaster chromosomes to scale with megabase-pair references oriented as in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database. Centimorgan distances are approximate and estimated from the locations of selected mapped loci.

The genome of D. melanogaster (sequenced in 2000, and curated at the FlyBase database[16]) contains four pairs of chromosomes: an X/Y pair, and three autosomes labeled 2, 3, and 4. The fourth chromosome is so tiny that it is often ignored, aside from its important eyeless gene. The D. melanogaster sequenced genome of 139.5 million base pairs has been annotated[18] and contains approximately 15,682 genes according to Ensemble release 73. More than 60% of the genome appears to be functional non-protein-coding DNA[19] involved in gene expression control. Determination of sex in Drosophila occurs by the X:A ratio of X chromosomes to autosomes, not because of the presence of a Y chromosome as in human sex determination. Although the Y chromosome is entirely heterochromatic, it contains at least 16 genes, many of which are thought to have male-related functions.[20]
Similarity to humans

About 75% of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in the genome of fruit flies,[21] and 50% of fly protein sequences have mammalian homologs. An online database called Homophila is available to search for human disease gene homologues in flies and vice versa.[22] Drosophila is being used as a genetic model for several human diseases including the neurodegenerative disorders Parkinson's, Huntington's, spinocerebellar ataxia and Alzheimer's disease. The fly is also being used to study mechanisms underlying aging and oxidative stress, immunity, diabetes, and cancer, as well as drug abuse.
Development
Main article: Drosophila embryogenesis

Embryogenesis in Drosophila has been extensively studied, as its small size, short generation time, and large brood size makes it ideal for genetic studies. It is also unique among model organisms in that cleavage occurs in a syncytium.
Drosophila melanogaster oogenesis

During oogenesis, cytoplasmic bridges called "ring canals" connect the forming oocyte to nurse cells. Nutrients and developmental control molecules move from the nurse cells into the oocyte. In the figure to the left, the forming oocyte can be seen to be covered by follicular support cells.

After fertilization of the oocyte the early embryo (or syncytial embryo) undergoes rapid DNA replication and 13 nuclear divisions until approximately 5000 to 6000 nuclei accumulate in the unseparated cytoplasm of the embryo. By the end of the 8th division most nuclei have migrated to the surface, surrounding the yolk sac (leaving behind only a few nuclei, which will become the yolk nuclei). After the 10th division the pole cells form at the posterior end of the embryo, segregating the germ line from the syncytium. Finally, after the 13th division cell membranes slowly invaginate, dividing the syncytium into individual somatic cells. Once this process is completed gastrulation starts.[23]

Nuclear division in the early Drosophila embryo happens so quickly there are no proper checkpoints so mistakes may be made in division of the DNA. To get around this problem, the nuclei that have made a mistake detach from their centrosomes and fall into the centre of the embryo (yolk sac), which will not form part of the fly.

The gene network (transcriptional and protein interactions) governing the early development of the fruit fly embryo is one of the best understood gene networks to date, especially the patterning along the antero-posterior (AP) and dorso-ventral (DV) axes (See under morphogenesis).[23]

The embryo undergoes well-characterized morphogenetic movements during gastrulation and early development, including germ-band extension, formation of several furrows, ventral invagination of the mesoderm, posterior and anterior invagination of endoderm (gut), as well as extensive body segmentation until finally hatching from the surrounding cuticle into a 1st-instar larva.

During larval development, tissues known as imaginal discs grow inside the larva. Imaginal discs develop to form most structures of the adult body, such as the head, legs, wings, thorax and genitalia. Cells of the imaginal disks are set aside during embryogenesis and continue to grow and divide during the larval stages—unlike most other cells of the larva, which have differentiated to perform specialized functions and grow without further cell division. At metamorphosis, the larva forms a pupa, inside which the larval tissues are reabsorbed and the imaginal tissues undergo extensive morphogenetic movements to form adult structures.
Sex determination

Drosophila have both X and Y chromosomes as well as autosomes. Unlike humans, the Y chromosome does not confer maleness; rather, it encodes genes necessary for making sperm. Sex is instead determined by the ratio of autosomes to X chromosomes. Furthermore, each cell "decides" whether to be male or female independently of the rest of the organism resulting in the occasional occurrence of gynandromorphs.
X Chromosomes Autosomes Ratio of X:A Sex
XXXX AAAA 1 Normal Female
XXX AAA 1 Normal Female
XXY AA 1 Normal Female
XXYY AA 1 Normal Female
XX AA 1 Normal Female
X AA 0.50 Normal Male (sterile)
XXX AA 1.50 Metafemale
XXXX AAA 1.33 Metafemale
XX AAA 0.66 Intersex
X AAA 0.33 Metamale

Three major genes are involved in determination of Drosophila sex. These are Sex-lethal, Sisterless and Deadpan. Deadpan is an autosomal gene which inhibits sex-lethal while sisterless is carried on the X chromosome and inhibits the action of deadpan. An AAX cell has twice as much deadpan as sisterless and so sex-lethal will be inhibited creating a male. On the other hand an AAXX cell will produce enough sisterless to inhibit the action of deadpan allowing the sex-lethal gene to be transcribed creating a female.

Later control by deadpan and sisterless disappears and what becomes important is the form of the sex-lethal gene. A secondary promoter causes transcription in both males and females. Analysis of the cDNA has shown that different forms are expressed in males and females. Sex-lethal has been shown to affect the splicing of its own mRNA. In males the 3rd exon is included which encodes a stop codon causing a truncated form to be produced. In the female version, the presence of sex-lethal causes this exon to be missed out the other 7 amino acids are produced as a full peptide chain, again giving us a difference between males and females. [24]

Presence or absence of functional Sex-lethal proteins now go on to affect the transcription of another protein known as Doublesex. In the absence of sex-lethal, Doublesex will have the 4th exon removed and be translated up to and including exon 6 (DSX-M[ale]), while in its presence the 4th exon which encodes a stop codon will produce a truncated version of the protein (DSX-F[emale]). DSX-F causes transcription of Yolk proteins 1 and 2 in somatic cells which will be pumped into the oocyte on its production.
Immunity

Unlike mammals, Drosophila only have innate immunity and lack an adaptive immune response. The D. melanogaster immune system can be divided into two responses: humoral and cell-mediated. The former is a systemic response mediated through the Toll and imd pathways, which are parallel systems for detecting microbes. The Toll pathway in Drosophila is known as the homologue of Toll-Like pathways in mammals. Spatzle, a known ligand for the Toll pathway in flies, is produced in response to Gram-positive bacteria, parasites, and fungal infection. Upon infection, pro-Spatzle will be cleaved by protease SPE (Spatzle processing enzyme) to become active Spatzle, which then binds to the Toll receptor located on the cell surface (Fat body, hemocytes) and dimerise for activation of downstream NF-κB signaling pathways. On the other hand, the imd pathway is triggered by Gram-negative bacteria through soluble and surface receptors (PGRP-LE and LC, respectively). D. melanogaster have a "fat body", which is thought to be homologous to the human liver. It is the primary secretory organ and produces antimicrobial peptides. These peptides are secreted into the hemolymph and bind infectious bacteria, killing them by forming pores in their cell walls. Years ago[when?] many drug companies wanted to purify these peptides and use them as antibiotics. Other than the fat body, hemocytes, the blood cells in drosophila, are known as the homologue of mammalian monocyte/macrophages, possessing a significant role in immune responses. It is known from the literature that in response to immune challenge, hemocytes are able to secrete cytokines, for example Spatzle, to activate downstream signaling pathways in the fat body. However, the mechanism still remains unclear.
Behavioral genetics and neuroscience

In 1971, Ron Konopka and Seymour Benzer published "Clock mutants of Drosophila melanogaster", a paper describing the first mutations that affected an animal's behavior. Wild-type flies show an activity rhythm with a frequency of about a day (24 hours). They found mutants with faster and slower rhythms as well as broken rhythms—flies that move and rest in random spurts. Work over the following 30 years has shown that these mutations (and others like them) affect a group of genes and their products that comprise a biochemical or biological clock. This clock is found in a wide range of fly cells, but the clock-bearing cells that control activity are several dozen neurons in the fly's central brain.

Since then, Benzer and others have used behavioral screens to isolate genes involved in vision, olfaction, audition, learning/memory, courtship, pain and other processes, such as longevity.

The first learning and memory mutants (dunce, rutabaga etc.) were isolated by William "Chip" Quinn while in Benzer's lab, and were eventually shown to encode components of an intracellular signaling pathway involving cyclic AMP, protein kinase A and a transcription factor known as CREB. These molecules were shown to be also involved in synaptic plasticity in Aplysia and mammals.

Male flies sing to the females during courtship using their wing to generate sound, and some of the genetics of sexual behavior have been characterized. In particular, the fruitless gene has several different splice forms, and male flies expressing female splice forms have female-like behavior and vice-versa.

Furthermore, Drosophila has been used in neuropharmacological research, including studies of cocaine and alcohol consumption.
Vision
Stereo images of the fly eye

The compound eye of the fruit fly contains 760 unit eyes or ommatidia, and are one of the most advanced among insects. Each ommatidium contains 8 photoreceptor cells (R1-8), support cells, pigment cells, and a cornea. Wild-type flies have reddish pigment cells, which serve to absorb excess blue light so the fly


RE: Race to 10,000 - Jinglebells - May 5, 2014

Woww, that's awesomeee. #love_it #awesome
I tell a story. Look at the words, how much are them
The young lady.
Died.
She never returned back, or see herself.
While she never saw herself she is laughing.


RE: Race to 10,000 - Jinglebells - May 19, 2014

3168 de $"5


RE: Race to 10,000 - FlightToAtlantis - May 19, 2014

3169