Fish sauced? Goldfish turn to alcohol to survive icy winters

By Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent

11 August 2017 

Scientists have decoded the secrets behind a goldfish's ability to survive in ice-covered lakes.

They've worked out how and why the fish turn lactic acid in their bodies into alcohol, as a means of staying alive.

Some goldfish were found to have levels well above legal drink-driving limits in many countries.

The researchers say the work may help with the study of some alcohol impacts in humans.

Scientists have known about the peculiar survival abilities of goldfish and their wild relatives, crucian carp, since the 1980s.

While humans and most vertebrates die in a few minutes without oxygen, these fish are able to survive for months in icy conditions in ponds and lakes in northern Europe.

Researchers have now uncovered the molecular mechanism behind this ability.

In most animals there is a single set of proteins that channel carbohydrates towards the mitochondria, which are the power packs of cells.

In the absence of oxygen, the consumption of carbohydrates generates lactic acid, which the goldfish can't get rid of and which kills them in minutes.

Continued

Nectartini? This Little Lemur Has a Taste for Alcohol

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | July 20, 2016 12:40pm ET

Researchers have found that a species of nocturnal lemur sips on fermented nectar, and this little creature prefers its drinks strong.

In fact, the new study suggests that the taste for alcohol may be more widespread in the primate lineage than scientists previously thought, and may be linked to genetic factors that shaped the diets of early humans. 

Scientists had already discovered a gene mutation in both humans and African great apes that enables the speedy digestion of alcohol; this was likely an adaptation that evolved to accommodate fermented foods in our ancestors' diets.

Now, researchers have investigated another species, called the aye-aye, that bears the same mutation, known as A294V.

Probing for nectar

In the new study, the researchers wanted to investigate whether alcohol was part of the aye-ayes' regular diet. Aye-ayes are nocturnal lemurs native to Madagascar. They're known for their exceptionally elongated finger that they use to find and extract beetle larvae from wood.

Continued ...

Fruit Flies Medicate Offspring with Alcohol

Joseph Castro, LiveScience Contributor

Date: 21 February 2013 Time: 02:00 PM ET

It's not likely anyone would nominate a fruit fly for a "Best Mother of the Year" award — after laying her eggs, the insect hits the road, never to be heard from again. But it now turns out that fruit fly mothers aren't completely uncaring and actually try to give their offspring a fighting chance at life.

If she spots a deadly parasitic wasp around, the female fruit fly will "medicate" her offspring by laying her eggs in an environment with high levels of alcohol, which is very toxic to the wasps but not to the flies, new research shows.

Throughout the world, parasitic wasps are a bane to fruit flies. Female wasps lay their eggs inside  fly larvae, which then hatch and eat the maggots from the inside out. Fly larvae have a natural immune response to try to kill the wasp, but the venom the wasp injects along with her egg sometimes counters this defense. 

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/27316-flies-medicate-offspring-with-alcohol.html

Sex-deprived male fruit flies seek solace in alcohol, bump into walls and pass out

Sex-deprived male fruit flies are more likely to drink alcohol to excess than those who’ve had sex, new research finds.

And it seems that a tiny molecule in the fly’s brain – known as neuropeptide F – is responsible for the behaviour, according to the study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

According to a study published Thursday in http://www.sciencemag.org/Science Magazine END, as the levels of this neuropeptide change in the brain so does the fly’s behaviour – with lower levels of it causing increased drinking.

This neuropeptide in the fruit fly’s brain is similar to a human molecule called neuropeptide Y. Researchers hypothesize that this neuropeptide Y may play a similar role in people – connecting social triggers like sex or the lack of sex to behaviours such as excessive drinking and drug abuse.

Some studies have already shown that reduced levels of neuropeptide Y play a role in people with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression – both risk factors for alcoholism. And there is some evidence from human genetics – although it’s still preliminary – that neuropeptide Y may be involved in alcoholism as well.

If that’s the case it could mean that therapies could be developed to inhibit neuropeptide Y receptors, the researchers believe, as a way to deal with alcohol and drug abuse.

Ulrike Heberlien and her lab at the University of California decided to look at how social experiences affect addiction after studying how genes affect alcoholism since the mid-1990s.

But since in humans only 50 per cent of the risk factor for alcoholism is genetic, Heberlein, a professor of anatomy and neurology, decided it was time to expand the investigation and look at what role social factors play on drinking.

So she along with post-doctoral fellow and lead author Galit Shohat-Ophir and others began conducting experiments on fruit flies to see whether not having sex would increase their consumption of alcohol.

Designing the experiments was fun, said Heberlein and watching the fruit flies get drunk eye-opening. “The first time I saw a drunk fly, I thought: ‘Oh my god, this is just like humans,” she recounted.

According to Heberlein the flies become uncoordinated, hyperactive and uninhibited.

“They bump into each other and the walls. If you give them more alcohol they become lethargic and uncoordinated. They fall over, pick themselves up and fall over again. Eventually they pass out.”

In the experiments conducted for the study, one group of male fruit flies was put in with female fruit flies that had sex already, Heberlein explained in an interview with the Star.

These male flies were rejected because of a sex peptide that is transmitted in male fruit fly seminal fluid. This sex peptide does something to a female fruit fly’s brain and causes it to reject all other sexual advances.

Meanwhile, another group of male flies was put in a container with virgin females with their choice of sexual partners.

Shohat-Ophir took the rejected and non-rejected flies and put them in a vial where there was plain liquid food and liquid food mixed with ethanol, monitoring how much the groups of flies drank during the day.

The study found the males that had been rejected showed a much higher preference for the alcohol laced food compared to the regular food, Heberlein said.

The team then made an educated guess as to why this was happening and decided to see if neuropeptide F might be involved.

Shohat-Ophir and the team of researchers then measured the levels of this neuropeptide in the brain of the flies.

The results: the levels of this neuropeptide were low in the rejected male fruit flies and high in mated males.

“This means the lack of this neuropeptide may be related to their increase in drinking alcohol,” said Heberlein.

Then the team to set out to figure out if the relationship was causal. “The beauty of working with flies is that we have so many tools to manipulate the fly’s brain genetically,” Heberlein said.

Shohat-Ophir, now a research specialist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Centre, reasoned that if neuropeptide F is in fact responsible for the change in drinking behaviour she should be able to transform mated males who have high levels of neuropeptide F into rejected males simply by inhibiting the receptor for this molecule.

So she did that and found that even though the flies had mated they began to drink a lot. “That proves the neuropeptide F is responsible,” said Heberlein.

And when she did the exact opposite in the rejected males – activating the neuropeptide F system – she found they reduced their dinking, Heberlein said.

“We think it’s the act of sex itself that affects their reward system or neuropeptide F and this in turn affects drinking,” Heberlein said.

The authors conclude in the study: “Our findings are thus not only consistent with known functions of mammalian NPY (neuropeptide Y) and its mode of regulation, but also provide evidence for NPF (neuropeptide F) functioning as a key molecular transducer between social experience and drug reward.”

Next Heberlein, who is to become the scientific program director at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Centre, plans to look at whether other social experiences have an affect on drinking.

She wants to test whether increased drinking is a phenomenon restricted to sexual rejection or whether other social experiences trigger a similar reaction.

And she hopes others will take up the mantle and do similar studies with mammals.

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1146750--sex-deprived-male-fruit-flies-seek-solace-in-alcohol-bump-into-walls-and-pass-out?bn=1 

Elephants on drunken rampage kill three people

Village left reeling after around 70 elephants destroyed 60 homes after feasting on hooch produced locally for a festival


Binge-drinking elephants, drunk on local hooch, have killed three people and destroyed 60 homes in a four-day rampage in east India.


Yesterday they were reported by local officials to be sleeping off hangovers as shocked communities tried to clear the wreckage left by the 70-strong herd in remote villages on the borders of the states of Orissa and West Bengal.

With a local festival approaching, villagers had stockpiled the fermented-rice based drink which is stored in earthenware vessels and, according to Bijay Kumar Panda, a local administrator, the elephants found and drank it.

They then staggered through the surrounding area and began "to fall asleep hither and thither, throwing life completely haywire".

According to the Pioneer newspaper, the "jumbos" are known "for their love of local country-made brews" which they "gulp down and make merry at the expense of the villagers".

Elephant experts say such incidents are becoming more common. With pristine forest increasingly rare, especially in the area where this latest incident occurred, Indian elephants no longer avoid contact with humans, said Dr Amirtharaj Williams, Asian rhino and elephant programme co-ordinator for the World Wildlife Fund. "These herds are effectively semi-urbanised. There are elephants who are getting a taste for food that humans prepare because it is tastier, stronger-smelling and often more nutritious and that includes rice- or molasses-based drinks. Some go looking for it."

Around 400 people are killed each year by elephants in India and nearly a million hectares of farmland damaged.

Around 100 elephants are killed by villagers each year.

India's booming population and economic growth have placed the historic grazing lands of elephants under enormous pressure. To avoid exhausting fodder in one area, the herds migrate. Attempts to create safe corridors for the animals' travel have foundered on bureaucratic sloth and lack of enforcement.

In September seven elephants were killed by a speeding goods train.

Latest estimates put India's elephant population at around 21,000 – the largest in Asia. About half of these are found in north-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.


Jason Burke guardian.co.uk,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/03/elephants-drunken-rampage-india

Drunk baboons plague Cape Town's exclusive suburbs

The sun is setting over South Africa's oldest vineyard and the last of the wine-tasting tourists are climbing onto their buses. But one large family group has no intention of leaving – and there is little the management can do about it.

Groot Constantia, in the heart of Cape Town's wine country, can deal with inebriated holidaymakers – but it is invading baboons which have developed a taste for its grapes that the wine makers are struggling with.

Each day, dozens of Cape Baboons gather to strip the ancient vines – the sauvignon blanc grapes are a particular favourite – before heading into the mountains to sleep. A few, who sample fallen fruit that has fermented in the sun, pass out and don't make it home.

"They are not just eating our grapes, they are raiding our kitchens and ripping the thatch off the roofs. They are becoming increasingly bold and destructive," said Jean Naude, general manager at the vineyard, which is celebrating its 325th birthday this year. Guards banging sticks and waving plastic snakes have been deployed with only limited success, and not even a blast of a vuvuzela, the plastic horn made famous at the World Cup, seems to frighten them.

It is not just the vineyards in South Africa which are under siege, however, but also the exclusive neighbouring suburb of Constantia, home to famous residents including Earl Spencer, Wilbur Smith and Nelson Mandela.

Crisis meetings between animal welfare groups and traumatised locals are struggling to find a workable solution.

"Where there's a mountain, there's a baboon," said Justin O'Riain of the Baboon Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. "As we take up more and more of their land, the conflict increases."

The baboons lived in the mountains of Cape Town long before humans took up residence, but development has forced the unlikely neighbours into increasingly closer contact.

Before laws afforded baboons a protected status a decade ago, troublesome animals were regularly killed or maimed by home owners and farmers. Now around 20 full-time "baboon monitors" are employed to protect them and guide them away from residential areas. It has proved mission impossible. Last week, a 12 year old boy was left traumatised after confronting a troop who had broken into his family home.

Hearing noises from the kitchen, he went to investigate and found the beasts ransacking cupboards. When the child fled upstairs to find his babysitter, three males gave chase and surrounded him as he made a tearful phone call to his mother, while the animals pelted him with fruit.

"When he called me he was terrified. They had him surrounded," said the Constantia housewife, who did not wish to be identified.

Chickens, geese, peacocks and even a Great Dane dog have been killed in recent weeks by the marauding baboons - the males have huge and terrifying canine teeth. Roof tiles, electric fences, orchards and vegetables gardens have been trashed.

"Lunch parties in the garden are now just impossible," a homeowner complained. "It is so unrelaxing. Rather than chatting over our meal, we are looking over our shoulders and bolting the food as quickly as we can before it is stolen. We can't even leave a window open in summer. We are under siege."

In a concession to despairing residents, wildlife authorities have begun collaring baboons identified as "troublesome" and imposed a strict "three strikes" policy whereby animals which repeatedly break into homes are humanely destroyed.

Fourteen year-old William, a large male known officially as GOB03, who had terrorised the coastal suburb of Scarborough for as long as anyone can remember, was the first to fall foul of this controversial rule.

His death last month was greeted with outrage and jubilation in equal measure and dominated the letters pages of the local newspapers for weeks.

Meanwhile, For Sale signs are sprouting up in suburbs with baboon populations. Families which have lived in the same house for generations are giving up, moving away to get away from their animal tormentors.