Hello everyone!
This is my final TALON Talk presentation about fruit flies and apple cider vinegar. Please comment any questions you may have.
Thank you!
6 Comments
Comments are closed.
Hello everyone!
This is my final TALON Talk presentation about fruit flies and apple cider vinegar. Please comment any questions you may have.
Thank you!
Comments are closed.
Hello Makenna!
Your Talon Talk is so well done! It’s very informative and thorough. The slides are really nice with meaningful graphics. You were clearly organized and on top of it 🙂 I learned that there is acetic acid in apple cider vinegar which can be corrosive over 25%! I also now know that yeast is what attracts the fruit flies, from watching your talk!
My question for you is: Do you know why it’s called mother? It’s a very interesting name
From Anita
P.S. Nailed the scientific fruit fly name pronounciationn!!!
Hello Anita, thank you so much for you comment!
For the longest time I was wondering the same thing myself. From some research, the best answer I can give you is that the name mother comes from the New Latin phrase Mycoderma Aceti, which means “fungus” in Greek, and “of the acid” in Latin. Also mother is a catalyst. It helps convert water, sugar, and apples into vinegar faster than it would on its own. Maybe they call it mother because it is like a parent to the mixture of water, apples, and sugar.
Makenna,
It was nice that you started with something relatable. Your voice was very clear, and your pace was good. Your timing was also well done, it was like a video rather than a PowerPoint. The video you showed was helpful. It cleared up what exactly you were talking about, as you used a harder vocabulary. It wasn’t very clear about if you were talking about homemade, or store-bought apple cider vinegar. Other than that, you made it seem very interesting and I learned a lot.
I have some questions that hopefully you’ll be able to answer. Does water do anything to the vinegar other than lowering its concentration? What happens if you dilute the apple cider vinegar too much? How does store bought compare to homemade apple cider vinegar? Do more flies get attracted if mother is added?
Great questions Sinu! I tried my best to answer them for you.
Does water do anything to the vinegar other than lowering its concentration? No, when you add water to vinegar it only dilutes it more.
What happens if you dilute the apple cider vinegar too much? If you dilute the apple cider vinegar too much, you will have a low concentration of yeast. When you have a low concentration of yeast, you will not be very successful in trying to attract fruit flies. This is because there will be less carbon dioxide produced by yeast which is what actually attracts the fruit flies.
How does store bought compare to homemade apple cider vinegar? One big difference is a lot of store bought apple cider vinegars do not have mother inside. The reason for this is because some consumers do not like the cloudy look mother gives the apple cider vinegar, they think it has gone bad. From my research, having mother in apple cider vinegar is very important while trying to attract fruit flies because that is where the majority of the yeast is located. When making apple cider vinegar at home, it does not matter if you start with mother or not because eventually it starts to form, but when buying apple cider vinegar from a store it is important to buy it specifically with mother inside.
Do more fruit flies get attracted if mother is added? Yes, theoretically the more mother you have, the more fruit flies will be attracted. This is because yeast is in mother, and more mother means more yeast. With lots of yeast, there will be a larger quantity of carbon dioxide made. Therefore, more mother will attract more fruit flies.
Hey Makenna! Your ted talk was amazing. The pace of your talk was really smooth and consistent, and I love how you included a video of the experiment with the yeast. I was also super impressed how you could say the scientific name for fruit flies (and so many times too!) A question I had for you is, you said the apple cider vinegar was a popular method to get rid of fruit flies in your home; however, in your presentation, you also said the yeast in the apple cider vinegar attracts the fruit flies. So, if I had a fruit fly manifestation in my home, then how would I use apple cider vinegar to get rid of the flies?
Hey Annie, thanks for leaving such a thoughtful comment and question!
To answer your question, one apple cider vinegar method to get rid of fruit flies is to take a medium sized cup or bowl and pour some apple cider vinegar inside. Then to prevent all of the fruit flies from escaping once you have caught them, you can cover the top of the cup or bowl with saranwrap and poke tiny holes in the top. The holes make is a bit more challenging for the fruit flies to escape because they cannot just feed and leave, they have to find their way out first.