"Female Drosophila melanogaster Respond to Song-Amplitude Modulations"

One of my papers came out in final published form a few days ago. Here are some details. (Also see the paper's supplementary material for an interview with the first author, my former D.Phil. student Birgit Brüggemeier.)

Title: Female Drosophila melanogaster Respond to Song-Amplitude Modulations

Authors: Birgit Brüggemeier, Mason A. Porter, Jim O. Vigoreaux,and Stephen F. Goodwin

Abstract: Males in numerous animal species use mating songs to attract females and intimidate competitors. We demonstrate that modulations in song amplitude are behaviourally relevant in the fruit fly Drosophila. We show that Drosophila melanogaster females prefer amplitude modulations that are typical of melanogaster song over other modulations, which suggests that amplitude modulations are processed auditorily by D. melanogaster. Our work demonstrates that receivers can decode messages in amplitude modulations, complementing the recent finding that male flies actively control song amplitude. To describe amplitude modulations, we propose the concept of song amplitude structure (SAS) and discuss similarities and differences to amplitude modulation with distance (AMD).

"Sexually Rejected Flies Turn to Booze"

Wow. Just wow.

I have posted about fruit fly sex before, and apparently fruit flies show a greater preference for alcohol when they don't get any action.

All we need now is some fruit fly rock 'n roll.

(Tip of the cap to Andrew Waugh and Yunkyu Sohn.)

More Fruit Fly Sex

One of the winners of the 2011 Dance Your PhD Contest comes from Oxford, and the video is about mating in fruit flies.

And if you're wondering about the title, it's because of this blog entry.

(Tip of the cap to Philip Maini.)

The Perils of Algorithmic Pricing

This blog entry tells a highly amusing story about algorithmic pricing on Amazon.

Wow! A book about flies that costs more than $23 million! Who knew?

(Tip of the cap to Jaideep Singh.)