Student Experiment Conducted on Ames 20G Centrifuge

Monday, August 20th, 2012
Student Experiment Conducted on Ames 20G Centrifuge

A group of students performed a Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) experiment on the 20G centrifuge on July 18 & 19th under the mentorship of Dr. Sharmila Bhattacharya and Dr. Jeffrey Smith in code SCR (Space Biosciences Research Branch), and Kurt Long, Steve Schery and Rabi Mehta in code AOX (Experimental Aero-physics branch). The experiment was designed (a) to test hardware being developed for a spaceflight experiment with Nanoracks, as well as to (b) obtain scientific data for hypergravity exposure at 5.0g, 3.0g, 1.03g and a ground control at 1.0g. The study looked at the behavior of two Drosophila lines - a wild type and a stress-resistant, long-lived mutant line; in order to differentiate the effects of different g-levels on behavior. Previous low resolution data from flight indicates anomalies in flight patterns of fruit flies, and this experimental set-up is designed to address the question of altered fly behavior in flight, and also address the neurobehavioral regulation of behavior in altered gravity environments using different oxidative stress mutants of flies.