
Human ancestors developed a taste for alcohol 10M years ago - jnaveen
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-sn-human-ancestors-alcohol-20141201-story.html
======
javaistheworst
Walking around Northern British towns on a Friday evening can provide a
glimpse of those early hominoid alcohol consuming ancestors.

~~~
ddmf
The amount of clothing they wear is probably close in area to the
stereotypical loin cloth too.

------
bane
I can kind of see alcohol being a powerful evolutionary mover: water sources
are frequently contaminated, killing off lots of drinkers, and the kinds of
biological contaminants frequently are more deadly in the young, (yes animals
get sick from drinking dirty water just like people) while alcohol can be a
decontaminant and is often present with hydrating water as well as other
nutrients and energy sources (like fruit) keeping drinkers of both alive maybe
long enough to reproduce.

------
ChrisNorstrom
I don't have a link to the video but: There's an island in the caribbean that
has little monkeys who love to steal tourists' alcoholic drinks. Only about
12% of the monkeys drink the alcohol (repeatedly going back to it), the same
rate of alcoholism in humans. I thought that was interesting, monkeys and
humans have the same rate of alcoholism, I guess the AA group was right, maybe
alcoholism is a genetic disease.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I don't have a link to the video but: There's an island in the caribbean
> that has little monkeys who love to steal tourists' alcoholic drinks. Only
> about 12% of the monkeys drink the alcohol, the same rate of alcoholism in
> humans. I thought that was interesting, monkeys and humans have the same
> rate of alcoholism

You seem to equate "drinking alcohol" with "alcoholism" for monkeys, but not
for humans. This might be justified -- maybe only monkeys with something
reasonably analogous to alcoholism will drink alcohol at all -- but it seems a
lot like taking numbers that match and inferring a pattern even though the
thing being measured isn't the same.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Sorry I forgot to specify 12% of the monkeys repeatedly and habitually stole
alcoholic drinks. Much higher numbers of monkeys steal the alcohol but after
tasting it abandon the drinks.

------
jnaveen
I have also read that alcohol was one of the first medicinal ingredient
discovered by man. Elephants too like to get a bit high by eating overly ripe
fruits.

