Fly's Eye

Drosophila melanogaster is the fancy name for the common fruit fly (or vinegar fly), and Thomas Hunt Morgan of California Institute of Technology is the man who made Drosophila famous. For several decades Dr. Morgan, a Nobel Prizewinner, and his numerous co-workers charted the locations of genes on the fruit fly's chromosomes.

Chromosomes are visible, but no man can swear that he has ever seen a gene. High magnifications have shown distinct segments along the chromosome's length, but it is not certain whether these are bundles of genes, or whether the genes occupy spaces between the segments. It is generally assumed that the genes are single big protein molecules, but that is not certain either. And the mechanism of the genes' heredity control remains obscure.

Last week scientists at Stanford and Caltech let out some preliminary details of an important discovery. At Stanford, Drs. Edward Lawrie Tatum and George Wells Beadle isolated in crystalline form one of two hormones by means of which Drosophila'?, genes control the fly's eye color. At Caltech, Dr. Arie Jan Haagen-Smit analyzed the hormone, found its molecule contained 21 atoms of carbon, 34 of hydrogen, two of nitrogen. 14 of oxygen. If the California scientists can follow up this first success by isolating and identifying the other eye-color hormone, they may cast a sudden brilliant light on how genes control heredity.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.