DM
Drosophila are laboratory favourites: these little fruit flies have short life cycles and active sex lives, so geneticists can track their characteristics over many generations. A proportion of the genes we know best were first identified in fruit fly DNA. From them we learn about basic biochemical processes shared by all living creatures – including us. Now Californian scientists have discovered something touchingly human about these buzzing little insects . Male fruit flies, when rejected by females, turn to alcohol . They are far more likely to booze than their happy, consummated peers. Whisky fans have long noticed how these little companions turn up to share a sip: not for nothing are habitual drinkers sometimes dismissed as bar flies. How poignant to discover that humans and Drosophila melanogaster share more than just a neuropeptide linked to addictive behaviour: they also react to disappointment in love in the same sad, time-honoured way.