Pass me a beer dude ...
Apparently drowning one's romantic woes in alcohol is a trait we all share. No, no, not with one another, not with our fellow brothers and sisters in arms (after all, love really is a battlefield sometimes). This is a trait we share with fruit flies. At least, that is, according to the latest issue of Science magazine. I just read an awesome article about how Drosophila melanogaster (a.k.a. fruit flies) will preferentially consume food laced with ethanol after failure to copulate. Apparently even fruit flies need to get drunk with their homeboys every now and then.
There are some pretty great highlights in this article. Did you know that male fruit flies will spend about 10 minutes courting the female and then about 20 minutes copulating? Think about the amount of time that men spend trying to get women into bed (or vice versa, this is the 21st century after all). If we spent twice as much time actually gettin' it on as we do trying to get in on ... well damn. Does anyone actually have the stamina for that? Is it even humanly possible to go for that long? And I'm not talking about doing it once, cuddling for a while, and then picking it up again in a few hours. Fruit flies don't cuddle. They just go non-stop until the deed is done. Although it is only 20 minutes for the lucky fly, I think nature might have us beat here. Consider this - a fruit fly weighs about 0.3mg (or so google tells me, it might be more but I think this estimate will make my point clear). That's 0.00000066 lbs. Pound for pound, that means I (a mere 150 lbs) would have to spend the kind of energy that comes with having sex for over 4.5 billion hours to match this. A crude comparison I admit, but wow. Sweet. Jesus.
Did you also know that male fruit flies will mate with a headless (and presumably dead) female? Now, I could say something here about the deperation of men, but maybe I just shouldn't go there. In fact, the idea of necrophilia is downright creepy, so I'm going to stop here. I will say that the article mentions that most male flies in this situation exhibit behavior consistent with 'failure to copulate'. In other words, they can't get it up with the dead chick so they go and drink themselves into a stupor. Can't really blame them I suppose.
Overall, a fun article. A review of the article attempts to paint it in a serious light and warns against anthropomorphizing the results. I give them a hardy FEH! How can you not anthropomorphize this?! It's just too awesome, especially when the authors make the matter-of-fact statement that results indicate that sex is rewarding. Um, duh. Why do you think so much of nature does the nasty on a regular basis? It's not because flies prefer shtooping it up with dead things. At least I hope that's not the reason, but whatever. It's genetic. And apparently so is the need to get wasted when we are rejected. Don't blame yourself, becaue baby you were born this way.
There are some pretty great highlights in this article. Did you know that male fruit flies will spend about 10 minutes courting the female and then about 20 minutes copulating? Think about the amount of time that men spend trying to get women into bed (or vice versa, this is the 21st century after all). If we spent twice as much time actually gettin' it on as we do trying to get in on ... well damn. Does anyone actually have the stamina for that? Is it even humanly possible to go for that long? And I'm not talking about doing it once, cuddling for a while, and then picking it up again in a few hours. Fruit flies don't cuddle. They just go non-stop until the deed is done. Although it is only 20 minutes for the lucky fly, I think nature might have us beat here. Consider this - a fruit fly weighs about 0.3mg (or so google tells me, it might be more but I think this estimate will make my point clear). That's 0.00000066 lbs. Pound for pound, that means I (a mere 150 lbs) would have to spend the kind of energy that comes with having sex for over 4.5 billion hours to match this. A crude comparison I admit, but wow. Sweet. Jesus.
Did you also know that male fruit flies will mate with a headless (and presumably dead) female? Now, I could say something here about the deperation of men, but maybe I just shouldn't go there. In fact, the idea of necrophilia is downright creepy, so I'm going to stop here. I will say that the article mentions that most male flies in this situation exhibit behavior consistent with 'failure to copulate'. In other words, they can't get it up with the dead chick so they go and drink themselves into a stupor. Can't really blame them I suppose.
Overall, a fun article. A review of the article attempts to paint it in a serious light and warns against anthropomorphizing the results. I give them a hardy FEH! How can you not anthropomorphize this?! It's just too awesome, especially when the authors make the matter-of-fact statement that results indicate that sex is rewarding. Um, duh. Why do you think so much of nature does the nasty on a regular basis? It's not because flies prefer shtooping it up with dead things. At least I hope that's not the reason, but whatever. It's genetic. And apparently so is the need to get wasted when we are rejected. Don't blame yourself, becaue baby you were born this way.