Fruit Flies Get Loaded to Kill Parasites

New research adds further proof that alcohol is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

Why do you drink? Is it to unwind after a long day at the office? To make a night out that much more enjoyable, if not memorable? To drown the sorrows of an unfulfilling marriage and ungrateful children? If you're a fruit fly, the answer is to win a life-or-death battle against wasp parasites that if left untreated will eat you from the inside out. New research shows that alcohol consumed by fruit flies eating fermenting produce has the effect of killing microscopic wasp larvae that enter the flies' bloodstream via those same pieces of fruit. From LiveScience's Jennifer Welsh:

When infected [fruit fly] larvae are placed in a dish with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic food, they even make a break for the alcohol to reduce their parasite load: After 24 hours, 80 percent of the infected fly larvae were hanging out on the alcohol side of the dish, but only 30 percent of the uninfected larvae were.

"We gave them a choice between food with alcohol and food without alcohol, and the infected flies overwhelmingly went to consume the toxic alcohol food," [Emory University's Todd] Schlenke said. It's as if the flies ask themselves, "Do I want to suffer from toxic levels of alcohol or do I want to die from this wasp?"

Strange! That's all too similar to the "do I want to suffer from toxic levels of alcohol tonight or do I want to suffer through another night of crushing, existential loneliness in this cold, cruel world?" we ask ourselves far too frequently. But while fruit flies are essentially a bunch of drunks out of necessity, it's worth noting, though, that the last time we tried to tell our loved ones that we "drank to kill the parasites" we ended up on Intervention.