Product Description

In ten weeks, one female fruit fly can produce more descendants than there are people on Earth. Some fruit flies are born without genitals - scientists call these mutants 'Ken and Barbie' - whereas others are born with their legs on their heads. They can be trained by punishment and reward, and have a work-and-rest schedule based on the 24-hour clock. They can become addicted to crack cocaine. Males have toxic semen, which is bad news for females: too much sex can kill them. And there are more than 1,000 species living in Hawaii. The amazing fruit fly is, in fact, an unsung hero in the history of science. No popular account exists of the fruit fly or its pioneering role in many of this century's greatest discoveries. FLY corrects this poor public image by telling the story of modern biology - from genetics to evolution, physiology to ecology, medicine to psychology - through the life of the fly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1228518 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 244 pages

From Amazon.com
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana, and biologists like fruit flies. Evolutionary geneticist and science journalist Martin Brookes explores the not-quite-microscopic world of Drosophila in Fly: The Unsung Hero of 20th-Century Science. Instantly familiar to any student of high school biology, the fruit fly is one of the most thoroughly studied organisms in the world; far more is known about its genetics and behavior than about those of our own species. Brookes tackles his tiny subjects with an enthusiastic wit, sharing tales of his own and others' lab work dating back to the 19th century. As his story unfolds, the spirit of scientific investigation shines through, with all its reliance on blind chance and quirky obsessions.

Back in the late 1970's, extreme mutants were all the rage. Take a trip round a hip and happening fruit fly laboratory and you might have been forgiven for thinking that you had stumbled across a fruit fly house of horrors. In the search for new mutants, flies were being force-fed mutagenic chemicals and were leaving a trail of disfigured descendants in their wake.

The interested reader will get insight not just into the scientific process, but also into the life of the fly itself. Birth, death, mating, learning--just about every aspect of the creature's life has been documented meticulously, and that level of detail can't help but yield some juicy bits. Though we find their feeding habits distasteful and their courtship maddeningly complex, maybe flies aren't so different from us, after all. Brookes's enthusiasm is catching, and Fly will send readers running to their kitchens to catch a glimpse of these scientific superstars. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly
Like Zelig, the ubiquitous guy who turns up at historical moments, Brookes's fruit fly, "a reliable, if unremarkable, laboratory workhorse," is present for some of the great moments in 20th-century science. The fruit fly came to the American South with the slave trade and, later, to the Northeast with the growing trade in rum, sugar and fresh fruits. Around the turn of the century, Victorian biology, with its emphasis on theology and obsessive anatomical description akin to biological stamp collecting, was giving way to experimentalism and Darwin's evolution; at the same time Gregor Mendel's ideas about genetic inheritance were just coming into fashion. Enter Columbia University scientist Thomas Hunt Morgan and his fruit flies and his experiments that would, Brookes suggests, help usher in the age of experimental biology. Brookes, a popular science writer for New Scientist, BBC Wildlife Magazine and author of What's the Big Idea? Genetics, traces the fruit fly's role in the study of mutation to identify control genes, detailing Hermann Muller's X-ray experiments in the 1920s, and the Nobel Prize-winning work of Ed Lewis, Christiane Nsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus in the 1970s. Brookes explores Russian-born Theodosius Dobzhansky's work in the 1930s that identified genetic diversity in species and genes as "the currency of evolutionary change"; he includes chapters on studies of fruit fly mating, aging and the genetics of behavior, and ends with the complete sequencing of the fruit fly genome. Brookes appears to have picked a rather narrow topic to write about, which may limit his readership. But his book's enigmatic title alone should warrant a second look, and book buyers just might get hooked. Brookes writes with humor and economy. He places the unsung fruit fly into the much broader and immediate history of the rapidly advancing fields of biology and genetics.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
MARTIN BROOKES has a PhD in evolutionary biology. He is now a freelance science writer for New Scientist, the Guardian and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Customer Reviews

excellent read
The book's an excellent read for both the layman and the science student. It successfully combines historical detail with contemporary implications of Drosophila research. Written in a breezy colloquial manner, it never gets boring while sacrificing only little of the scientific content. The author does abuse the fly sex theme, often resorting to it with specious warrant. The other shortcoming of the book has to do with its physical quality, which is horrible. Seedy five-buck pocket-size thrillers are printed on paper of incomparably higher quality. Judged on the content, though - a well-written, informative, and entertaining book.

bzzzzzzz...
In biology labs across the world, fruit flies are turning up answers to some of the basic questions of life. From genetics to development, behavior to aging, and evolution to the origin of species, the fruit fly has been has played the dimunitive guinea pig for some of the 20th century's greatest biological discoveries. Techniques to pinpoint genes that play a role in human disease depend on genetic mapmaking principles first established with the fly. It was experiments on fruit flies that opened our eyes to the dangers of radiation to human health. In fact, everything from gene therapy to cloning to the Human Genome Project is built on the foundation of fruit fly research. In highly original, witty, and irreverent style, Brookes takes readers through the successive stages in the life cycle of the fly, each illustrating an important concept in biology. Some, such as the fundamentals of heredity, are well established; others, such as sexual warfare, learning, and memory, are still in their infancy. But whether flies are getting high on crack cocaine, enjoying the pleasures and pains of a boozy night out, being trained by punishment and reward, or struggling with insomnia, this book provides a glimpse of how one short life has informed almost every aspect of human existence. Much more intriguing, edifying, and entertaining than you'd imagine.

funny and interesting
The author writes with a light touch, poking fun at himself, making fruit fly sex jokes, and describing the tortured trials of the fruit fly (my favorite is his depiction of drunken fruit flies too soused to fly!). The book is designed to be comprehensible to all. It's a light overview of the evolution of biological thought in the 20th century, through a framework of how fruit fly research pushed biological thought forward.
He brings in the stories of assorted fruit fly researchers, and how genetics plugged the holes in the theory of evolution. He writes of fruit fly experiments that taught scientists how man's internal clocks work, how man learns, how man ages. He doesn't bog down the explanations with loads of technicalia, but one comes out feeling enlightened.
I found his explanation of genetics a touch strained (he was trying to keep it light and non-textbook-y), but overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Plus the fruit fly experiments described in there are utterly fascinating and make great conversation topics.