I just wanted to briefly recount a story about school biology.
We had to breed fruitflies, and then count them. We were taught how to identify male and female flies under a microscope.
To do this, first you drug them. (Yes, a class full of fifteen year olds with ether...) Then you look at them with a microscope and then you push them into lines with a pin so that the teacher can come and check your work.
We had the wingless flies. We pushed the ether sponge over their tube so that they stopped moving around, and then tipped them out and started counting them.
A couple of minutes later, they awoke. We discovered two things: First - our sponge hadn't actually had any ether on it. Second - fruit flies like being in lines. They happily swapped places with each other - but they stayed lined up. The teacher did not believe this story.
In a later class, a friend accidentally turned the incubator on full and melted, then boiled, their food stuff. "I boiled the fruit flies!" was the cry. The teacher, as usual, handed out the "here's what you should have seen" results, since the result: "Breed 10 wingless flies with 10 white eyed flies -> 1 surviving wingless fly." wasn't terribly useful.
Mmmm, ether. Everyone's favorite volatile solvent. There's a very similar practical in NatSci 1A Biology of Cells. You were told to kill your flies after you had finished with them, by dumping them into a jar of ethanol ( having first rendered them unconscious with CO2 ). I didn't want to do that, so I released them outside by a piece of fruit. Sadly, I then learned that they probably died from the cold weather anyway... -- Xarak
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