Emily Behrman, a postdoc in David Stern’s lab at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus, knitted a sweater inspired by her research for Janelia’s annual holiday sweater contest. Behrman studies the genetic and neuronal basis of how behaviors evolve in two closely related Drosophila species, D. melanogaster and D. simulans. This year, she worked on identifying genes involved in species-specific male courtship behaviors and studied how the same type of neurons can evolve to have new functions in different species.
The sweater’s pattern “is arranged in a hierarchy from the smallest, sub-cellular component (DNA) closest to the neck collar to the adult fly,” says Behrman in an email to The Scientist. A row of Drosophila eggs is visible directly below the DNA. The eggs are usually all white, “but the shape reminded me of Christmas tree bulbs, so I used artistic license and colored the eggs and kept ...
