If you’ve become bored with computer-generated action on screen, I’ve discovered a fight scene that’s like Rocky meets the Three Musketeers. And this production may hold answers to one of the mysteries of life: Why can’t we all just get along?
Now at a Web site near you: Fruit Fly Fights.
This isn’t a frat-boy hobby, it’s serious research at Harvard University. It provides a glimpse of human nature beyond mere competitiveness. So before you swat that bugger away from the bananas, you should realize that the fruit fly might be instrumental in saving your life someday.
Dr. Edward Kravitz, the Don King of neurobiology and a professor at Harvard, started the Fruit Fly Fight Club four years ago. Initially, Kravitz put two male flies in a chamber to see if they’d fight over a female. That proved difficult because the female kept flying away from them. So the researchers took her head off–and it worked.
It seems the male flies don’t care what she looks like. Throw some food in there and you have plenty of conflict. The flies demonstrated a variety of fighting maneuvers: tussling, chasing, fencing, boxing and more.
The fights move so quickly that students videotape them and then watch the slow-motion replay to score the bouts. These researchers are betting on the fights to learn more about the biology of aggression, dominance and defeat. Fruit flies and humans in conflict share similar brain chemicals and behaviors. Kravitz says there’s a logic to the flies’ aggression.
“You start with wings up; move on to fencing; progress to boxing.” He says it’s somehow wired into the brain.
If aggression is wired into our brains, perhaps it can be rewired by gene manipulation. However, he admits, even if fruit flies (or people) are born with the aggression gene, behavior also is influenced by environment and experience.
“If you take a fly, give it food, mates and comfortable surroundings, there’s not a lot to fight over. The big picture is development of understanding of biological process and how it can be modified so you might be able to treat people who [are prone to] unusual violence. People say it’s ridiculous. You can’t learn from flies. Other say, ‘Stop! You’re trying to control us.’ It’s important to learn about ourselves and our survival.”
He learned three things from the fights, which you can watch at labworks.hms.harvard.edu/fruit(underscore)fly:
1) Male fruit flies that pick a fight are likely to win the battle.
2)Losing fruit flies don’t give up easily.
3) Most fruit fly fights are resolved before they escalate into intense physical contact.
Kravitz says research at Harvard on fruit flies someday could lead to cures for diseases like Parkinson’s. In the meantime, Kravitz and his students are having fun with weird science.
“Do you find this as funny as I do?” I asked him.
“Absolutely. It’s a combination. It’s great fun. The students love the videos, and the fact that fruit flies can actually do something interesting. … The science is unbelievable.”
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lpotash@tribune.com
