Geneticists say: our ancestors descended from a tree to the earth in search of fermented carrion fruits
Another writer Sergei Dovlatov prophetically exclaimed: “Thousands of books have been written about the dangers of alcohol. About its benefits - not a single one. I think - in vain. Scientists from the University of California at Berkeley have filled this annoying gap. And they made a discovery that claims to be a real revolution in the field of science about the origin of human civilization! And it all started with the fact that American molecular geneticists decided to figure it out in seven and study the evolution of the ADH4 enzyme, which in our digestive tract is responsible for the digestion of ethyl alcohol.
In order to reconstruct the course of events, detectives from biology used the methods of paleogenetics. At one time, with their help, scientists reconstructed the DNA of the Egyptian pharaohs and found their modern relatives.
This time, the researchers wanted to understand how the “alcoholic” gene changed in 28 mammalian species over 70 million years. After all, other primates have it too. However, the human variant of the ADH4 enzyme is orders of magnitude superior in its ability to assimilate alcohol the analogs with which great apes are "armed". And this allows even the ladies to whip martinis in such doses, from which the male orangutan falls into an alcoholic coma.
For a long time, pundits believed that this ability arose in humans in connection with the transition from gathering and hunting to agriculture. It was then that the first primitive alcoholic drinks appeared. This happened about 10 thousand years ago. And already 5 thousand years ago, most of the grape harvest in Ancient Egypt was used to make wine! This is evidenced by ancient literary sources and archaeological data.
However, biologists have obtained results that refuted the conventional theory.
It turned out that the enzyme has undergone only one mutation in its 70 millionth history. It happened not 10 thousand, but 10 million years ago and led to a sharp increase in the ability of our ancestors to assimilate alcohol.
What happened 10 million years ago? It turns out that it was at this moment that our tailed ancestors made a great revolution: they began to descend from the tree to the ground and master movement on two legs.
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American biologists came to the conclusion that the climate by this time was becoming more arid, the food supply was narrowing, and our ancestors were forced to descend from the trees to pick up fallen fruits from the ground. The fermented flesh of the rotten fruit contained alcohol and had a weak alcoholic effect. The monkeys, having eaten "cheerful fruits", inevitably got drunk. Well, then everything went according to the familiar pattern: “Do you respect me? Let's go add! " Probably, the ability to "relax and relieve stress" became an additional incentive for our ancestors to come down to earth more often.
The subsequent mechanism is completely understandable: thanks to natural selection, monkeys survived, able to eat rotten bananas and pineapples without getting drunk (this is where such a quality valued among Russian men came from - author). After all, primates thumping into zyuzu became easy prey for predators! This means that a mutation of the high-performance enzyme ADH4 was fixed in the offspring of weakly intoxicated monkeys.
Scientists, however, stipulate that the hypothesis that our ancestors came down to earth precisely in search of "booze" still needs to be worked out. But when on New Year's Eve you raise your glasses of effervescent, do not forget to drink to the health of the “pioneers” of this wonderful (if you drink in moderation - author) tradition.
BTW
The norm of an elephant - 5 bottles of vodka
Despite the fact that the body of other mammals is much less adapted for the digestion of alcohol, they are also not fools to drink.
For example, in a number of circus companies in the cold season, animals include alcohol in their diet as a preventive measure against colds.
For example, in Yaroslavl, a “medicine” is prepared for elephants for sugrying at the rate of 5 bottles of vodka per barrel of water. Considering that the average weight of an elephant is 5 tons, it takes on the chest a dose equivalent to 50 grams of vodka for a person. At the Ivanov Zoo, Japanese macaques are given five tablespoons of vintage Cahors daily. In the private zoo "Limpopo" in Nizhny Novgorod, a bison is served a 150-gram glass of vodka. Camels take the same dose of alcohol. As noted by employees of institutions, signs of humanization in animals were not observed.
At the same time, clinical experiments with dogs have shown that alcohol is much more harmful to animals. For example, a dachshund, which was added to food daily from 30 to 50 grams of alcohol, died of chronic alcoholism after five months. It is known that bees themselves fight alcoholism in their community. A drunken bee, which managed to collect sour nectar, is not allowed into the hive by the guards, and in some cases even bite off its legs as punishment.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV
