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Mutant Fruit Flies Have Genetic Resistance to Alcohol

seedmagazine.com — Give them a little booze, and fruit flies get rowdy. After too much alcohol, they'll stagger and, eventually, pass out. But for a select few flies, alcohol's effects are much weaker. Now, scientists have identified the genetic mutation responsible for this difference.

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Who Dugg It?

borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27lol...random story:

Once, I was with my cousin at the beach and we opened this bottle of vodka we had bough earlier that day. We dipped pieces of bread in the vodka and threw them to the pigeons, or whatever the birds round the beach are called. After about 5 minutes, and a couple shots of booze, the birds couldn't walk anymore. They'd walk a few steps and fall. Flying was completely out of the question.

We laughed for about five minutes straight, until some of the people at the peer started looking at us funny. I guess this could be considered animal abuse, but the birds looked like they were having the time of their lives.
- CrankyPants, on 10/12/2007, -3/+131. They're seagulls. (DUH!)
  2. It's a "pier"
  3. Are you high right now?
  4. It IS animal abuse -- that's what makes it funny.
  5. There's documented observations of animals eating fruit that's begun to ferment and getting drunk. Some even seem to crave it.
- webbsk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Dugg++ just for borninda818's awesome story alone. Funniest thing I've heard all week!
- NinjaBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wonder if it was a similar story that started the "testing" on the flys.
- MystyRayne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hahaha! That is the funniest thing ever! *hmmmmmm*
billyboobs34, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12My girlfriend's mom must have this genetic resistance to alcohol.

It doesn't make her drunk, it makes her psychotic...
Abjure, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The first thing I thought of when I saw fruit flies was Alex Albrecht...
- billyboobs34, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Don't dis. Alex, he lives in southern California and he has fruit.
- bamiller3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Which would explain why they have a resistance to alcohol.
Nesh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Dear gods they must be stopped before this finds its way to humans!
- caffeinejunkiex, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2My God! Now with fruit fries resistant to alcohol, nothing will stop them from taking over the world!
  
  "Khan!!!!!! Khaan!!!!!!!"
foobar5892, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is never gonna catch on with humans.
- billyboobs34, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Mel Gibson has it.. When he got pulled over he was acting normally.
- pollardito, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1it's not resistance, it's tolerance, and it's here. those flies are the boozer flies, these silly doses the scientists are giving them are nothing compared to what they got in college
Tuck, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Thank god they are talking about fruit flies and not women. If they were talking about women, she would have never passed out, and the best 19 seconds of my life would have never happened.
chubbymidget, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's Southern California and I have fruit.
Fhwqhgads, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So whose brilliant idea was it to give booze to fruit flies?

What a waste!
- NinjaBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thats what i was thinking.
  1. Get some flies wasted
  2. ????
  3. PROFIT
GrayV, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Give them a little booze, and fruit flies get rowdy. After too much alcohol, they'll stagger and, eventually, pass out."

I think I'm a fruit fly.
somnus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A lot of First Nations in Canada (what Americans would call Natives) are a resistance to the negative effects of alcohol (hangover, etc) and can drink a lot more. Unfortunately, they tend to get drunk after just a few, and still have all the behavious associated with it. They also tend to become completely addicted, devastating whole tribes. This has been attributed to genetics, with that part being different from that of "westerners". Hence Irish can drink more and still hold onto their mind, but have a hangover, and Natives can consume more volume, lose their mind, and not feel it the next day.

http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v17n3/p18.html

I'm having trouble finding sources, but I know a few social workers and doctors who work in bad areas and they say these are commonly known facts. Sad, but factual.
protogenxl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Across America men in laboratories work to remove the spirituous scourge from mankind as a whole.
Meanwhile, Ness and his men speed towards Capone's Hideout.
Azur2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Pointless trivia time...
Fruitflies are bred for hundreds of generations in laboratory, but every two weeks or so they become too numerous and you need to start a new colony. You do that by sedating them with chloroform, and the selecting the flies you want with a tweezer while they're sleeping.

The interesting part is that flies which have been in culture for a long time are more sensitive to chloroform than wild flies, and stay sedated longer. Why? Because the flies which wake up fastest fly away, and only those who stay sedated while the guy in the coat picks them up with tweezers get to found a new culture.

True.
- ciro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In the drosophila lab I work in, we dump the flies onto CO2 diffusers to anesthetize them. And we suck them into pipette tips inserted into tubes in our mouths. Tweezers would be awfully tricky to use without killing the flies, though they are very tough little critters.
starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1just from memory... it seems like alcohol is an analog or helper to endorphin. if they don't get drunk doesn't that imply something is broken.
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Mutant Fruit Flies Have Genetic Resistance to Alcohol

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