fairfolio
Saved Projects

Fruit Flies on the Radical Track Age Fast and Die Young

CSEF · 2011 Pharmacology/ Toxicology

Talar Kassabian · Chamlian (Vahan & Anoush) Armenian School, Glendale, Los Angeles County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this project is to test whether increased amounts of hydrogen peroxide affects the aging process of fruit flies. I hypothesize that the fruit flies with more H2O2 in their food supply will die faster than those with less or no H2O2 in their food supply. Methods/Materials Prepare media (sugar, instant mash, yeast, vinegar) and mix with 0%, 0.5%, 1% and 3% H2O2 respectively. Also, prepare a control group by mixing media with water. Put media and 10 flies in containers and count the number of corpses each day. Results At the end of the experiment flies in groups with more H2O2 died faster than the others. Flies in the 3% H2O2 media lived for an average of 8.63 days, in the 1% H2O2 they lived for an average of 9.46 days, in the 0.5% H2O2 they lived for an average of 14.15 days, and in the control group (0% H2O2) they lived for an average of 17.68 days. Also, the lifespan of the flies in the 3% H2O2 media was reduced by 51.18%, for those in the 1% H2O2 by 46.49%, and for those in the 0.5% H2O2 by 19.96%. As to the standard deviation of each group, the control group had a STDV of 1.79, the 0.5% H2O2 group 0.91, the 1% H2O2 group 1.76, and the 3% H2O2 group 0.65. Conclusions/Discussion The results of this experiment agree with my hypothesis, wich states that oxygen radicals increase the aging process of fruit flies. However, the lifespan of the flies in my settings turned out to be longer than those stated in other studies. This could be due to the disintegration of H2O2 upon its addition to the media. To overcome this problem I would use another alternative to prepare the media to maintain the desired concentrations of H2O2.

Summary statement

The purpose of my project is to determine the effect of oxygen radicals on the aging process of D. melanogaster.

Help received

Mrs. Lida Gevorkian helped me with my overall project. My mother helped me handle the flies, and my father helped me decorate my poster board.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2011 Pharmacology/ Toxicology · Entry J1717

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google