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Same switches program taste and smell in fruit flies


February 3, 2016

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A Duke University study helps explain how fruit flies get their keen sense of smell. Researchers have identified a set of genetic control switches that interact early in a fly's development to generate dozens of types of specialized nerve cells for smell. The findings could reveal how the nervous systems of other animals--including humans, whose brains have billions of neurons--produce a dazzling array of cell types from just a few genes.Full Story

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Duke University

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