Monday, January 14, 2008

So... pump much ethanol

Big guy?

Photobucket

With Daily Alcohol Use, Male Fruit Flies Court Other Males:
In contrast to previous studies in other labs, which subjected fruit flies to short-term doses of ethanol -- the intoxicating ingredient in alcoholic drinks -- Han's team administered to fruit flies a daily dose of ethanol to more closely mimic the drinking habits of alcoholics and chronic alcohol abusers. The team investigated several factors that influence the physiological effects of ethanol, including genetic and cellular components, age, and prior experience.

Among the team's discoveries is that male fruit flies, which typically court females, also actively court males when they are given a daily dose of ethanol. "We identified three molecules that are crucial for "ethanol-induced courtship disinhibition," Han said. In one of the team's experiments, Han and her students generated transgenic flies whose brain activities regulated by the neurotransmitter dopamine could be turned off temporarily by changing the temperature to 32-degrees C. "Without a temperature change, the transgenic males showed conspicuous inter-male courtship under the influence of ethanol; however, they exhibited negligible inter-male courtship when we changed the temperature to block the transmission of dopamine neurons in the brain," Han said. "This result suggests that dopamine is a key mediator of ethanol-induced inter-male courtship."
Suddenly all the men will be driving hydrogen cars......

2 comments:

Distributorcap said...

someone once said
what is the difference between a gay man and a straight man

a bottle of Jack Daniels

i wonder how Huckabee feels about drunk fruit flies

ellroon said...

They should be damned to the seventh level of hell... or something...