Re: 48'th update on fly longevity experiments

From: I William Wiser (will@wiserlife.com)
Date: Sat Oct 06 2001 - 21:50:11 MDT


Doug,

Have you spent much time talking to Michael Rose?

I imagine you have but I just thought I would ask.

Take care,
Will

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Skrecky" <oberon@vcn.bc.ca>
To: <extropians-digest@extropy.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 7:51 PM
Subject: 48'th update on fly longevity experiments

> This is the 48'th update of my fly longevity experiments. All bottles
> contain 1/4 tsp citric acid as a standard additive. Here I examine the
> effect of removing the corpses of dead flies at each census. Since I do
> not have access to CO2 gas, I placed the "no corpse" bottles in my fridge
> to temporarily reduce fly movement, so that corpses can be removed without
> live flies also escaping. One fly did escape during the day 9
> census from the "no corpse 3" bottle, but the survival statistics were
> adjusted accordingly. Control bottles were also placed in the fridge as
> well at the same time so as to act as true controls.
> The population density in breeding bottles is much higher than in the
> bottles I use for longevity experiments. The risk of viral transmission
> would correspondingly be much higher in the breeding bottles. It makes
> sense that the presence of rotting fly corpses may aid in viral
> transmission. However it is not clear to me whether corpses are a risk to
> the few flies in each bottle of a longevity run. Here I decide the matter
> with an experiment. As can be seen in these results, removal of corpses
> has no effect on fly longevity. The variations in survival I attribute
> both to random variations in fly ages at the start of the experiment, and
> random variations in degree of viral infestation.
> In the next run I will examine the effect of various dietary fibers on
> longevity.
>
> Run #48 Percent Survival on Day
> supplement 5 9 14 19 24 31 36 42 47 52 57 63
> _________________________________________________
> control 1 94 82 82 82 ? 58 29 6 6 6 0 -
> control 2 95 84 68 58 ? 16 5 5 5 5 5 0
> control 3 100 100 80 70 ? 55 30 25 10 0 - -
> no corpse 1 100 75 70 65 50 30 30 5 0 - - -
> no corpse 2 100 78 67 67 50 28 11 11 11 6 0 -
> no corpse 3 100 84 56 33 28 11 6 6 0 - - -
>
>



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