alcohol
Drunken Fruit Flies Get Horney
Drunk males get hornier and hornier the more they drink...to the point they start chasing anything, even other males. Problem is, though they get far more interested in having sex, their performance declines the more they drink.
All of that according to a study from the lab of Kyung-An Han, a neurobiologist at Pennsylvania State University, and reported in Nature News. Oh...the study was done on fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster).
From the article on Nature News:
In the flies, hypersexuality caused by chronic alcohol exposure has the effect of making the males chase anything with wings — other males included. Although sexual preference in humans is obviously a complex phenomenon not replicated by the fly work, the findings could be used to further establish a fly model system for the study of alcoholism, observers say...
As the concentration of ethanol in the body rises, flies begin to become uncoordinated and oblivious to their surroundings: they get tipsy. “They bump into each other. They bump into the walls,†says Heberlein.
Add more alcohol and the flies become sedated. Add still more and the soused flies die. Remarkably, even the concentrations of ethanol that induce these behaviours are nearly the same in flies and humans, says Heberlein. Flies also develop a tolerance to alcohol, and can develop withdrawal-like symptoms...
alcohol | Science | sexuality
