One day in the life of a fly is roughly equivalent to one year in the life of humansThat’s why researchers like Wessells use them to study the long-term effects of exercise on the body without needing to track humans for decades. So far, experiments with these insects have revealed, among other things, that after “years” of regular exercise older flies demonstrate the vigor of middle-aged flies. “The goal is not to extend their life span but to improve their ability to move well and have a good quality of life as they age,” he continued. “And it turns out that flies have some problems similar to humans, for example that getting moving is the hardest thing for them.”
But, before starting his investigations, Wessells had to solve a more basic problem:How do you convince a fly to exercise?Wessells gives full credit for the solution to laboratory technician Nicole Piazza, inventor of what she callsthe “Energy Tower”. In this curious device the flies are housed in different levels of test tubes inside a wooden frame. Every 20 seconds a motorized arm releases a lever and the frame drops a short distance, pushing the flies to the bottom of the tube. As soon as they fall, the flies climb back up the wall of the tube. And he does it over and over and over again. “The machine takes advantage of its natural instinct to climb the tube,” explains Piazza.
