MISSION NAME: Mission: Drosophila
STATUS:
LOCATION: Napa Valley, California, USA
DIFFICULTY RATING: 100%
TERMS TO KNOW:
There will be no new terms in this mission due to the fact that this mission was designed to use all of your knowledge accumulated from the previous missions. You will need to recall this information and be able to apply it here in this final mission.
BRIEFING:
The GMF has just received word that a terrorist has released several thousand fruit flies (Drosophila Melanogaster) into the grape fields of Napa Valley in California. These flies are destroying the valuable crop and putting hundreds of wine makers out of business. The local land owners have called in all of the best exterminators, insect control, and pest abatement specialists, but their efforts did not solve anything. The local wine makers commissioned the GMF to solve their problems.
Since you are one of our most experienced agents, we recruited you to try and solve this case. To help you, GMF intelligence has gathered a little information about the flies...
The flies are symbolized
with W for normal wings, w for vestigial (recessive)
and B for normal body color,
b for black body color (recessive).
The normal,
or wild types have a light tan colored body color and normal wings. (WWBB, WWBb, WwBB,
WwBb)
The vestigial-winged flies
have small wings and cannot fly (wwBB or wwBb)
The black-bodied flies have
an ebony colored body (WWbb or Wwbb)
The black-bodied, vestigial
winged flies cannot fly and are born sterile, not being able to reproduce (wwbb)
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Images used with permission. © 1997, The Exploratorium
Before hiring the GMF, the land owners had hired several geneticists to try and find a solution, but they were unsuccessful just like the exterminators. The geneticists before you discovered a little information about the flies but they are not sharing their information with us right now.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use genetics to find a way to get rid of these pests and ensure that they do not harm the wine crops of the Napa Valley.
You will be equipped with the usual tools:
When you click accept, you will be transported to the wine country in California.
