The piRNA pathway regulates satellite DNAs in the Drosophila melanogaster germline and affects heterochromatin establishment at pericentromeric satellite DNA in embryos, implying a general role for piRNAs in ensuring genome stability.

Ribosomes translate through stop codons far more often than previously thought, yielding C-terminally extended proteins in a variety of eukaryotes.

A newly described isolate of the behavior-manipulating fly pathogen Entomophthora muscae that naturally infects fruit flies can be cultured in the lab, enabling molecular investigation of how microbes induce behavior changes in animal hosts.

Drosophila melanogaster embryos undergo a dramatic genomic transformation in the hour preceding gastrulation, as thousands of promoters and regulatory regions become biochemically distinct before they become active.

Analysis of a spermiogenesis protein reveals a new chromatin requirement for synchrony between maternal DNA packaged in the egg and sperm-packaged paternal DNA in the first embryonic mitosis in Drosophila melanogaster.

Genome wide association analyses in a wild-derived Drosophila melanogaster population uncover extensive variation in cuticular hydrocarbon composition, which may present a target for natural selection and adaptive evolution.

A 'male-harming' mtDNA mutation has been identified in Drosophila and impairs male fertility without impairing other male or female functions.

Novel imaging experiments suggest that fruit flies modify their neural circuitry for walking at slow, medium and fast speeds, and that proprioception is not essential for coordinated walking.

Sperm production and male fertility in Drosophila melanogaster depend on transcripts generated from the AAGAG(n) repeated satellite DNA within primary spermatocytes.

Deposition of the exon junction complex is thought to be the missing link between pre-mRNA splicing and translation in multicellular organisms, but no evidence of such deposition has been found in Drosophila.