100 YEARS OLD AND KEEPING HIS HEAD DRY AT PARTIES...
TWO particularly intriguing papers have caught my interest in the latest issue of the science journal Nature. The first answers a question raised by Mark Twain almost 150 years ago while the second poses a question that nobody even thought of asking before.
In his early travel book Roughing It, Mark Twain wrote of a visit to Mono Lake, California, where the water is so salty, almost nothing can live in it. No fish, no frogs, no snakes are to be found. Nothing, in fact, except a white sort of worm whose presence in large numbers attracts hordes of flies.
One aspect of these flies’ behaviour particularly interested Mark Twain. “You can hold them under water as long as you please – they do not mind it – they are only proud of it,” he wrote. “When you let them go, they pop up to the surface as dry as a patent office report, and walk off as unconcernedly as if they had been educated especially with a view to affording instructive entertainment to man in that particular way.”
Until now, we had no idea how Twain’s flies remain so dry and protect themselves from the intense alkalinity of the water. Now, the paper in Nature has solved the problem. Not only are the flies covered in hairs coated with a water-repelling waxy substance, but in water, air bubbles form around their entire bodies except for the eyes. The flies can then breathe the oxygen in the air bubbles, which also keep them dry. Other flies may have waxy coats, but the Lake Mono variety have thicker coats made of smaller hydrocarbons which are perfectly designed to keep them waterproof.
The second intriguing paper is not about flies but mice and it centres on research of the effect on them of the drug ketamine. This drug apparently is popular among the sort of humans who go to clubs for its mood-lifting properties. Apparently, it does this for mice as well. Specifically, research has shown that mice injected with ketamine before being thrown into a tank of water will keep swimming longer before giving up than mice who have not taken the drug.
The latest findings, however, seem to show that the anti-depressant effect occurs only when the drug is given by a male researcher. If a female injects it into a mouse, ketamine has no effect at all. It has been conjectured that the anti-depressant effect is caused by some unexplained combination of the drug and the smell of human males on the mouse brain.
Whether the effect is different for male and female mice is not mentioned, but I assume they have taken that into account.
Unable to find any mice to ask about it, I attracted the attention of a passing fly and asked it directly: do you think you could swim underwater for longer at Mono Lake if a male researcher put a dose of the drug Ketamine in your drink at a party?
“I’m sorry,” said the fly, “I try to stay dry at parties, especially if there is a swimming pool in the offing.”
I thanked him for his contribution and he buzzed off. I must find a girl fly to ask the same question.