It’s the ultimate seedy bar scene: Late in the evening, a guy makes a move on a woman sitting on the next bar stool, who turns him down. Rebuffed, he turns to the bartender and drowns his sorrows in another beer. That scene has now been played out, not in a bar, but in a modern lab at the University of California at San Francisco, and not with people - but with flies.
Male fruit flies, rejected in their attempts to mate, turn to alcohol-soaked food, researchers reported today. Scientists think the discovery, along with evidence that the behavior seems to be driven by a small molecule in the brain, may open a window onto the self-destructive actions of alcoholics and drug addicts.