Question: How are human biology and flying biology related to cause scientists to confidently use fruit flies for almost 100 years?

Mariam Orme answered on 21 Jun 2010:

As I said in my profile, fruit flies and humans are surprisingly similar, at least at a molecular level. All the basic biological processes that a cell has to go through, like growth, division and death, happen in pretty much the same way in flies and in humans. That’s why we can confidently use flies as ‘simplified humans’ in biology.
Of course whenever I find something out in flies, I then have to confirm whether it works the same way in humans, but the flies are a great starting point for understanding things.