EYELESS INSIGHT

Biologist Walter
Gehring and his
colleagues from the
University of
Basel in
Switzerland have
developed
genetically
engineered swarms of
fruit flies,
helping them
understand
how nature fashions
the eye in living
organisms.

They identified the
master control gene, eyeless,
instrumental in eye
formation in fruit
flies. They inserted
multiple copies of
this gene in fruitfly embryos. The
result: flies with
multiple eyes
positioned all over
their
bodies.