Posted on 11/25/2024 1:05:12 PM PST by nickcarraway
Researchers find that hornets have several copies of the gene responsible for producing the enzyme that breaks down alcohol.
A new discovery from researchers at Tel Aviv University has identified a surprising champion of alcohol tolerance – the Oriental hornet.
In their recently-published study, the researchers put the Oriental hornet in the spotlight, where it stands alone — and completely sober — as the only known animal capable of consuming high concentrations of alcohol continuously without experiencing any adverse effects.
This finding could revolutionize scientists’ approach to alcohol-related research.
“This is a remarkable animal that shows no signs of intoxication or illness even after ingesting huge amounts of alcohol,” notes the research team, spearheaded by Sofia Bouchebti and Prof. Eran Levin at TAU’s School of Zoology and Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.
Oriental hornets could potentially be used to develop new models for studying alcoholism and the metabolism of alcohol.
What makes this discovery particularly striking is how it contrasts with other species’ reactions to alcohol.
While alcohol naturally occurs in nature through the fermentation of sugars by yeasts and bacteria in ripe fruits and nectar, most animals — including humans — can’t handle significant amounts without serious consequences, such as impeded balance and embarrassing phone calls.
Even fruit flies, which commonly dine upon fermenting fruits, show signs of intoxication after a nibble too many (proving that nature has a particularly cruel sense of humor and that the best things in life are out to kill us).
Incredible ability to handle alcohol
So what makes the hornets able to drink the rest of the animal kingdom under the table?
To find this out, the research team conducted a series of increasingly ambitious experiments to test the hornets’ extraordinary capabilities.
In perhaps the most striking demonstration, hornets were given a diet consisting of 80 percent alcohol — a concentration that would be lethal to most organisms (though this is still being rigorously tested by college students).
Remarkably, these insects not only survived but showed no behavioral changes or health impacts throughout their normal three-month lifespan.
Levin explains the key to the puzzle, discovered via analysis of the hornet’s genome: “The hornet possesses several copies of the gene responsible for producing the enzyme that breaks down alcohol; this genetic adaptation may be related to their incredible ability to handle alcohol.”
The evolution of this unique ability might be rooted in the hornets’ longstanding relationship with yeasts. The insects naturally harbor yeasts in their digestive systems, creating a symbiotic relationship that may have driven their adaptation to alcohol tolerance.
With alcohol-related deaths accounting for 5.3% of global mortality, the implications of this research could make for more than an interesting “did you know” at the next social function you attend.
“We believe that, following our research, Oriental hornets could potentially be used to develop new models for studying alcoholism and the metabolism of alcohol,” Levin concludes.
That is quite a story. What did your Mom and Dad have to say about the shenanigans.
Hornets, wasps and whatever else that flies and stings can be fun. Get a pole 10 feet or longer and just poke the hive. They will attack the pole, not you. They really get mad. Others coming in from the forest will join in attacking the pole.
When fun is over, shoot the nest with a 12 gauge. It drops to the ground, then soak it with Raid.
Seriously, I do this. My wife thinks I’m nuts.
What if the pole is metric?
Well, you’re probably better off.
I have a glass of wine of dinner usually. That’s about it for me.
I never told them about falling off the roof onto that rusty pile of scrap metal. I was terrified of getting needles of any kind, novocaine for stitches, needles from stitches...tetanus shots...
When I fell, I plummeted perhaps ten feet onto a pile of rusty scrap metal consisting of old torn up bed springs and discarded farm implements, and I impaled my right shin on something. Oddly, it didn’t tear my blue jeans, but it was clear I had done something, because I could see blood spreading out around the fabric. With my arm around my older brother’s shoulder, I hobbled to a neighbor’s house and pulled up the leg of my jeans, and saw a hole in my shin oozing blood profusely.
I was sitting by a garden hose, so I poured water over it, and saw the hole appeared to be about an inch in diameter and at least an inch deep. (I can verify the diameter by looking down at my leg now at the scar) I just missed my shin bone, and as I peered into it, I saw a thing that looked like a piece of cooked spaghetti in a tomato sauce of blood. Don’t know what that was, but might have been a blood vessel for all I know.
I was terrified of getting stitches, so I never told my parents about it. It took about a year to heal, and it didn’t heal well. During that time, I kept it hidden, but I remember gnats getting into it and things like that.
Just disgusting to recall.
My dad got orders to Japan where we lived about a year later, and I was walking on a seawall of rocks, slipped, and the whole thing came open again. Then I had to make up a story, because I had been told to stay away from that area, and had also lost my glasses when I fell.
But I got a tetanus shot and stitches this time.
Point is, I was talking about this incident with my older brother recently, and thought “My God, I could have got tetanus, but...as soon as I said it, I laughed.
No chance.
I was accident prone, and probably got more tetanus shots and boosters than any kid I know. The doctors gave them to me like they gave lifesavers to other kids, and even my parents lost track, so there was no chance, none, that I was ever going to get tetanus!
Then the bees buzzing sound will have an English accent.
at the prison warehouse we had a pallet of moldy raisins they were dumped in a farm ravine and we had drunk raccoons and deer running around.
That same farmer who had the fields with the abandoned stable had fields that were probably at least the size of eight football fields (well, at least to my 7-8 year old eyes) but near the end our house was across the street from, there was a gigantic fir tree of some kind.
I think it was a spruce of some kind, not a hemlock, and one day we were out in the field and my oldest brother had gone towards the far end of the field while my brother who was a year older was standing with me.
I don’t recall the exact chain of events, but my older brother and I became alarmed when we saw my brother running full tilt from the far, far end of the field, pursued by a dog. We both jumped onto that tree and began climbing (I don’t know why we didn’t just run out of the field, but perhaps we thought it might be safer in the tree.
We climbed to to the top of that lone tree in this field, and the two of us were all the way up at the top, our arms wrapped around the trunk while the tree moved gently from side to side.
Far below, we saw the tiny figure of my oldest brother running at full speed with the dog some 50-100 yards behind him...followed by the farmer on his tractor, following the dog!
The dog and the farmer never caught my brother and he never saw me and my brother up at the top of that tall tree! How, I don’t know.
In the years since, I have assumed that he was only trying to scare my brother off and either didn’t see us up there, or he did, and thought it would scare us enough from simply watching the proceedings.
If that is what he thought, he was right. We never went back into that farmer’s field after that!
a lot of the drunken bums used to be beautiful people.
So are squirrels
Mother’s family came from Ireland, dad’s from Wales.
My beautiful mother had to be put in a home because she had Korsakov syndrome (alcohol), looked like dementia, but her vital signs were better, they told me.
My dad was a “periodic” alcoholic. Was extremely successful with restaurants from coast to coast. He was murdered by the mob because he didn’t want his employees to join unions and pay their exorbitant “fees”.
My son died a few years ago, at first they thought from heart failure, but upon further exam, ethanol poisoning. He was always the best looking person in the family with a genius IQ.
My sister, who died recently, joined AA and stayed sober after that. But she essentially smoked herself to death. Another addiction.
My daughter and I somehow missed the addiction gene(?) or problem.
Yep. See my post #31
You should write a book. Seriously. 👏👏👏
Another perfectly sound gov’t project to spend taxpayer money on.
It might go further than just an addiction gene. Clearly your family had a strong malfunction when it comes to drinking.
It may also have to do with the way they processed the alcohol as possibly seen in your son. Your daughter will have to watch out for it in her children even though she didn’t get hit with the problem.
If it looks like you might have come from the “traveling irish” genetic pool they come with their own huge problems.
I come from Wales and Ireland genetics. Black Irish on one side. Regular Irish on the other all up the line. Drinking problem in some family members but I think it is just the addiction gene and not the processing genes. Some of my ancestors had the forehead that might have been traveling Irish.
When I look at my genetics I have a lot of the mess that can come from Irish but didn’t hit me. For example, I have one half of the Celtic Curse but you typically need both to have a problem.
Here are some of the diseases of the Irish traveler gene pool. I have a bunch of the genes related to these diseases. So many that I am convinced I surely must be part of the Irish Traveler group.
https://www.orpha.net/pdfs/data/Cns/Protocol/IE/ID115626NW.pdf
Top diagnoses in Metabolics:
Galactosemia
Hurler Syndrome
I cell disease
Hyperprolinaemia
Infantile liver failure type 1 ILFS1
Glutaric aciduria type 1
Glycogen storage disorder (GSD) types III and V
Classical PKU and pterin defects
Methylmalonic aciduria
Leigh disease and Respiratory Chain Disorders
Sly syndrome
Top diagnoses in Clinical Genetics
Osteogenesis Imperfecta (lepre1 gene)
Natural Killer Cell and Glucocorticoid deficiency with DNA repair defect NKGCD
Primary ciliary dyskinesia (Genetic Heterogeneity)
McArdles
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Walker-Warburg
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Cardiomyopathy
Deafness
Cohen syndrome
Lebers amaurosis (Genetic Heterogeneity)
Top diagnoses in neurology
Epilepsy
Friedreich’s Ataxia
I cell disease
Leigh disease
GSD V
Microcephaly
Walker-Warburg
Merosin negative myopathy
Lebers amaurosis
Cohen syndrome
Top diagnosis in endocrinology
Natural Killer Cell and Glucocorticoid deficiency with DNA repair defect NKGCD
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia
46,XY female phenotype (Genetic Heterogeneity)
Osteogenesis imperfecta
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Wolcott-Rallison
How do they get them to hold their shot glass?
I took a job at 20 on a pipeline job in Alabama.
First time away from Texas so it was fun.
First day on the job I saw one of those big paper type hornet nests. We don’t have those in Texas.
So like on the cartoons I started throwing rocks at the nest to see what happened.
Well, the local guys who did the heavy dirt work decided the day was over, as the crazy boys from Texas were throwing rocks at the hornet nest.
Job super almost fired me for running off half his crew!
Good times! I miss the 80’s!!!
None of the above.
My daughter got extremely good genes from her paternal grandmother. Looks like her, perfect housekeeper like her, everything in. moderation
The Oriental hornet, not a drunk, but it’s gambling problem, well that’s another story.
“Great. Booze-proof Hornets”
Feeding booze to bugs — what a subject for a PhD thesis!
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