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.

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