Review: From insect to instrument

For more than 80 years ‘that extraordinary little beast’ the fruit fly
Drosophila has performed an important role in experimental biology. In Lords
of the Fly: Genetics and the Experiment Life (University of Chicago Press,
pp 321, $45 pbk), Robert Kohler traces the history of the fly groups from
early, simple experiments on how the fly responds to, for example, heat
or X-rays, through to the analysis of its chromosomal mechanics in the field
and laboratory. An international network of ‘drosophilists’ exchanged stocks
and information and Kohler suggests that, in the process, the fruit fly
became a laboratory instrument rather than a wild insect.