'Entomologists like Sial enjoy telling people that, left to their own devices for a year, a male fruit fly and a female fruit fly—the latter of which can lay hundreds of eggs during her brief lifetime—could theoretically coat the surface of the planet with their descendants, in a layer dense enough to “fill the space between the Earth and the moon” … twice.'
@cyrilpedia As usual, reading the article requires a subscription. So what is their secret of dealing with the small-winged demons?
@lzvolk "A solid lid isn’t a perfect deterrent. I’ve been using one for years, and still the fruit flies hover, as if waiting for me to lapse. So I recently added one final hack, per experts’ advice, and diluted the produce in my bin with some used paper towels and shredded news clips."
@cyrilpedia I wonder if adding mint leaves might also work. I wish I kept a copy of the poem I wrote, “Ode to the Dead Fruitfly”, when I left the lab. 😏
@cyrilpedia Excellent idea. The entire floor in the dept was infested with Drosophila escapees. I moved to the floor below.