Analysis of the Involvement of the Terrestrial Space Radiation in the Microgravity Effects on Drosophila Melanogaster Development and Aging

Biological development, i.e., the process by which a highly complicated multi-tissular organism develops from an aparently uniform homogeneous cell, the fertilized oocyte, remains as mysterious today as the first time that it was observed by the curious eye of a man. Even though, especially in recent times by the joint effort of the genetical, cell biological and molecular approaches (Sambroek, 1985, Wilkins, 1986, Davidson, 1987), our knowledge of the details of embryonic development has been greatly extended, we still lack a true understanding of how this process occurs. In fact a fascinating story of complex tempo-spatial patterns of gene activity is currently being described (for instance, Lawrence et al, 1987), but its mechanistically linkage to the phenoytpe produced, the normal larva and adult, remains basically untackled.