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OMG -- Same!: Fruit Flies Denied Sex Turn To Booze

March 16, 2012 / alcohol, booze, denied!, drinking, flies, humans, i believe i can fly i believe i can touch the sky think about it every night and day get rejected and drink away, insects, not getting it on, not suprised, oh man if you get rejected by a fruit fly you have got to be uuuuuuugly, sadness, those poor bastards, who doesn't?!

boozing-fly.jpg

Because insects are more like us than we like to give them credit for, a recent study at UC San Francisco proves that male fruit flies denied sex like to get drunk to deal with the rejection. Holy shit -- they're practically human.

The team, which was led by neuroscientist Ulrike Heberlien, used this behavior to identify a signaling molecule in the flies' brains called neuropeptide F (NPF). Flies that had been denied sex were shown to have low levels of NPF; but when researchers genetically altered sex-deprived flies to produce NPF at higher levels than usual, they behaved as though they were sexually satisfied, and demonstrated no preference for alcohol-dosed food.


"Natural rewards and abused drugs affect the function of the brain's reward systems," explain Heberlein and her colleagues in the latest issue of Science. "And abnormal function of these brain regions is associated with addictive behavior."

*crushing beer can on head* Women, amirite? Tey make me durnk. "Jesus, GW, how many have you had?" NOT ENOUGH TO FILL THE LONELINESS. So yeah, the next time you find a fly in your drink, remember: he's in the same boat as you are.

Deprived of sex, male fruit flies turn to booze [io9]

Thanks to Arkim, who agrees the secret is to drink PRIOR to the rejection, that way you're better set to cope.

There are Comments


  • Remove the lid and
    label from a clean and empty plastic two-liter soda bottle. Now, carefully
    remove the upper third of the bottle by cutting along its circumference at
    approximately where the top of the label used to be.

  • Closet Nerd

    best part about rotten fruit is that you can make new holes.... just sayin

  • Back when I had a fruit fly problem two years ago, the females must've been total prudes because sangria seemed to catch them infinitely better than plain old fruit juice... and I do mean OLD.

  • n_a_a_s

    annnd this comes right off the front pages of DUH magazine, only the DUH article shows fruit flies going past the booze and frequenting strip clubs, also funding fruit prostitution 

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