Male Fruit Flies Seek Alcohol

Life’s short, especially for these little guys. According to a new study published in the journal Science, a young male fruit fly is more likely to seek out food spiked with alcohol after being rejected by a mate. It’s not uncommon for fruit flies to develop a taste for the philosophic wine, but flies whose passions went unreturned caused them to act much like humans do in seeking out alcohol. Male flies that have difficulty mating are more likely to seek a social lubricant than those who scooped the female Drosophilia melanogaster of their dreams right off her adorable segmented legs. “It’s the first time we have shown this link between a social experience that involves reward and a drug-related behavior” in the flies, one researcher said.