Not So Sweet For Fruit Flies

It’s not every day that the results of a sixth-grader’s science fair project end up in a peer-reviewed journal article. But earlier this month, a research team at Drexel University published a study in PLoS One that was the brainchild of a 12-year-old (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0098949). Daniel R. Marenda, Sean O’Donnell, and colleagues reported that erythritol, the main ingredient of the sweetener Truvia, is toxic to Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies. Because erythritol is a naturally occurring sugar alcohol and because it isn’t harmful to people, the scientists think the compound holds promise as a human-safe insecticide. “Fruit flies are a major pest category,” Marenda says. The discovery wouldn’t have been possible without Simon D. Kaschock-Marenda, who went to his dad three years ago to pitch an idea. Knowing that his father was a neurobiologist at Drexel with access to a supply of fruit flies, the sixth-grader proposed a science fair project: ...