At conference.

Recently, a group from Harvard University showed that they do not “steer” along their way but they employ the frequently stops strategy. Every few steps, larvae will stop and sense the environment with their head. If they were put between a sugar at left and a bitter at right, they will try to understand both sides and choose the preferable one. Their videos showed that larvae can make the decision pretty fast. After they checked right side, they turned to the left side again. Almost immediately they chose the sugar side. No matter it is chemical, light, temperature or other stimuli, larvae employ the same strategy – no steer but check it frequently.

Another interesting story came from YungNunh Jan, a fly giant in UCSF. He told us the history of his career. His boss was Benzer, the first scientist trying to decode mechanisms with molecular biology. Dr. Jan worked with his boss in Cold Spring Harbor and then CalTech. In the first Neurobiology of Drosophila Conference, there were only about 20 people but now, the attendant population ranges at hundreds. (On my way to the airport, a professor with silver hair told me that he kept attending this conference since the second one. Isn’t it a long story he can tell me?) At the very beginning of Jan’s career, it was pretty tough and they tried very very hard. Jan couple published 5 papers in 9 months and got the tenure successfully. Nowadays, they have a lab consisting of 18 postdoc and 4 graduate students.