Thursday 17 January 2008

Evidence that Drosophila can, in fact, be cute

I spent six years, nine months and twelve days doing my PhD on egg development in Drosophila melanogaster, and, though I did come across a few mutants like curly that I suppose in retrospect were passably cute in the loosest meaning of the word, I never did fall in love with my organism the way "they" say you do. Then, yesterday, out of the blue, I saw this at The Other 95%:

Click the undisputably cute Drosophila
to see the Joe Sayers comic strip in its entirety.


This is one cute fruit fly. The tiny eyes! The little wings! The itty bitty straight stick figure legs (the correct number no less!) supporting the featureless body like a grape on a comb!

And it's not just cute, it's useful, too: the next time you see maggots on a banana just take a deep breath (through your mouth) and think of this little guy. It will help you to not recoil in disgust. Trust me on this one.

2 comments:

Humble said...

You can, of course, scientifically determine exactly HOW cute the thing is, using the tools available here: http://www.cuteoverload.com/
you are seeking both The Coveted Trifecta of Cute, and the Rules of Cute, which contain helpful ear to head/eye to head/head to body/ and possibly leg to body ratios to assist in quantifying cuteness.

Karen James said...

CuteOverload.com is one of my secret indulgences. If there is no ear, then is the ear to head ratio infinite? I suppose I could use the wings as proxies.