Jilted fruit flies turn to alcohol

My favourite study of the week. A highly educated group of genius scientists are now monitoring the love life of fruit flies. Apparently our DNA doesn’t lie – we’re closer to a small irritating fly than you might think.

Scientists at UCLA have discovered that when male fruit flies are rejected by females (presumably they counted the number of ‘brush off’ lines from snarky female flies), male fruit flies are driven to excessive alcohol consumption.

To be honest the research raises more questions than answers:

1. a)   Can real scientific research be performed in a bar?
2. b)   Exactly how much alcohol is ‘excessive’ for a fruit fly? Were they flying drunk?
3. c)   The underlying mechanism is apparently a bout of depression from rejection. We have  depressed fruit flies? Does this mean we should stop swatting them?

Another giant leap in scientific discovery!