Fruit Flies: An update - The Sequel!!!

So... I appear to have run out of test subjects.

My kitchen is now fruit fly free...but for the sake of science, I wish there were more!

Here's how it happened:
After the first day of the experiment, both the red wine and the balsamic vinegar were attracting plenty of fruit flies. However, none had died. I attempted to kill a fly by blowing it into the liquid, but found that they just bounced right off the surface of the liquid. This is because of surface tension. Both red wine and balsamic vinegar are water-based liquids that have plenty of happy hydrogen bonding which creates surface tension.

What the heck is hydrogen bonding, you ask?
Well, my dear reader, I will gladly tell you!

In all water and water-based liquids, there are tons of teensy-tiny atoms of hydrogen. Two atoms of hydrogen for every atom of oxygen, to be exact. This makes H2O a.k.a. water. Now, there's something here about unequal sharing of electrons and dipoles, but that's kinda boring, so just know that these hydrogens start making weak bonds between other water molecules. These hydrogen bonds are what create surface tension. This is the same surface tension that allows water-striders to stride on water. These are also the hydrogen bonds that facilitate transpiration in plants, form raindrops, and allow all life on Earth to continue existing, but that's another matter entirely.

At this point, I have recognized a problem in my experimental set-up. Flies are attracted to the vinegar, but they just won't drown! Too much surface tension!

Then I received a lovely recommendation from my good friend Jesse. He says that his friend's mom swears by a cup of apple cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap to kill fruit flies.

Eureka! DISH SOAP! That will solve my surface tension problem!

Unlike water, dish soap does not like hydrogen bonds. In fact, it breaks hydrogen bonds! You can see a great demo of this here! (Just substitute fruit flies for the paper clips.)

So, now that I have added dish soap to each of the cups, here is the final tally:
Balsamic - 18
Red wine - 9 (including one very large fly of a genus other than the Drosophila I was expecting)
Honey - 0
Water - 0

And just after I poured out the last of the Balsamic vinegar, another fly flew in, so...
Vinegar - 19
 Honey - Epic Fail.

You actually catch more flies with vinegar than you do with honey.

Huh.

And that's the end of that.

Myth Busted!

(Adam and Jamie would be proud)