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N I D C D, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders

Researchers Find New Taste in Fruit Flies: Carbonated Water

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
1:00 p.m. EDT/6:00 p.m. London time

Contact:
Jennifer Wenger
(301) 496-7243
jwenger@mail.nih.gov

That fruit fly hovering over your kitchen counter may be attracted to more than the bananas that are going brown; it may also want a sip of your carbonated water. Fruit flies detect and are attracted to the taste of carbon dioxide dissolved in water, such as water found on rotting fruits containing yeast, concludes a study appearing in the August 30 issue of the journal Nature. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted the study, suggest that the ability to taste carbon dioxide may help a fruit fly scout for food that is nutritious over that which is too ripe and potentially toxic. The research is partly funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health.

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NIDCD supports and conducts research and research training on the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice, speech, and language and provides health information, based upon scientific discovery, to the public. For more information about NIDCD programs, see the Web site at www.nidcd.nih.gov.