Eau de fruit fly

A single scent moves female fruit files to swoon and males to flee. The difference, new research shows, is in the brain’s wiring.

Male flies on the prowl put out a pheromone called cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA) that both sexes detect with scent-sensing cells on their antennae.

To explain how cVA prompts such different reactions in male and female flies, researchers traced the circuitry of the cells connecting the antennae to the brain.