People's Choice: Sense-Sational

The picture shows the taste (proboscis) and smell (maxillary palps) organs of the fruit fly. The image was taken with a 20x objective using a Nikon AR1 confocal microscope. Sensory neurons in these organs can make the same smell or taste to be perceived as attractive or repulsive depending on whether the animal is satiated or hungry. Thus, studying the neurons in these sensory organs is essential to the understanding of normal feeding behavior regulation.