In the book, Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner i have been fascinated and learned many new concepts of behavior i did not know before. In chapter sixteen, one of Benzer's students, Chip Quinn decided to continue the memory project they had discovered in his own fly room. He was really interested in finding why some flies learn quicker than others and while some didn't learn their lesson at all. In one experiment, Ronald Booker tied a fly's leg with wire and dangled it over a pool of salt water and 9 out of 10 wild flies learned to keep their leg up to not get an electric shot. But he also discovered that if he attempted to decapitate the fly's head off with a razor blade, the fly quickly reacted in moving its legs so it can survive. He concluded that flies have nerves outside the brain, just as human beings do. Those nerves outside the flies brains were actually learning the lesson. Quinn's other student Tim Tully, decided to improve the teaching machine by designing his own. The new machine he made was quiet and could function with the lights off therefore the flies were much calmer than Quinn's. The random noise that usually distracted the flies was eliminated in this machine and Tully discovered that he can distinguish many types of flies with stupidity. For instance, the fly rutabaga was not stupid; it is able to learn, it just forgets its lessons fast. He also did an experiment with long term memory by giving a set of flies 10 lessons after one another without no break(crammers) and another set learned ten lessons with breaks in between. His results indicated that the crammers forgot everything fast(only made short-term memory) while the set of flies who had breaks in between remembered their lessons after a week! I find this very amusing because this supports my hypothesis that if anyone crams any information for a test you aren't actually learning the material but instead you just know it for like a day. For instance, if you want to get a passing score on the AP Biology test then you must study long term not just cram everything the day before the test. You can guarantee yourself a non passing grade. It's the same for non english speakers who are trying to learn english and they have to practice their skills everyday or else they will not remember the information they learned in class. Memory is an important skill everyone needs if they want to succeed in life.
REFERENCES
Weiner, Jonathan. Time, Love, Memory, A Great Biologist And His Quest For The Origins Of Behavior. New York : Vintage, 1999. 200-212. Print.
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