4 ms·

There's a paywall so I'm not sure what the article discusses, but humanity hasn't existed for anywhere close to 10M years.

andsoitis 10mo ago
> humanity hasn't existed for anywhere close to 10M years. From the article: " Humans, unusually, have a pair of enzymes that turf it out like night-club bouncers. Our ability to process alcohol has deep evolutionary roots. Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing, notes Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground."
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
onionisafruit 10mo ago
I haven’t read the whole thing, but it starts off talking about a gene mutation in our ancestors species 10 million years ago that lets us process alcohol. So they are taking a little artistic license.
jibal 10mo ago
Welcome to the world of headline writing. https://archive.is/KVT11 https://archive.is/KVT11 Humanity's gene for processing alcohol has existed for 10M years, and that's what they are actually talking about.
Retric 10mo ago
A mutation in our ancestors 10 million years ago likely spread due ground fruit fermenting, becoming toxic to other creatures thus creating an ecological niche. So, even if they were not human it’s reasonable to say the love affair is that old and shared with other species. “Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing, notes Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground. Whereas apes in trees gobbled fresh fruit, those on the ground found fallen fruit, which ferments. Thus, our ancestors may have acquired a taste for alcohol–which allowed them to use these scarce calories. This “drunken monkey” hypothesis suggests that a love of the smell and taste of alcohol, the sign of an energy-rich fruit, gave our ancestors an edge. Their chosen poison would have been fairly weak. A study of overripe wild Panamanian palm fruits found none stronger than 5% alcohol—about the same as a Heineken.“
- darubedarob 10mo ago
  There is that pet theory that alcohlism also converted us from nomads to agrarian societies as mead and bear are impractical to make year round while on the move.
SanjayMehta 10mo ago
It's just The Economist: they specialise in click bait written in a dry, British professor style.
m463 10mo ago
clickbait 101

andsoitis 10mo ago

> humanity hasn't existed for anywhere close to 10M years. From the article: " Humans, unusually, have a pair of enzymes that turf it out like night-club bouncers. Our ability to process alcohol has deep evolutionary roots. Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing, notes Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground."

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

onionisafruit 10mo ago

I haven’t read the whole thing, but it starts off talking about a gene mutation in our ancestors species 10 million years ago that lets us process alcohol. So they are taking a little artistic license.

jibal 10mo ago

Welcome to the world of headline writing. https://archive.is/KVT11 https://archive.is/KVT11 Humanity's gene for processing alcohol has existed for 10M years, and that's what they are actually talking about.

Retric 10mo ago

A mutation in our ancestors 10 million years ago likely spread due ground fruit fermenting, becoming toxic to other creatures thus creating an ecological niche. So, even if they were not human it’s reasonable to say the love affair is that old and shared with other species. “Ten million years ago a common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas acquired a mutation that let them remove ethanol from the body more efficiently. This adaptation coincided with a change of habitat. Tropical forests were collapsing, notes Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. Some 90% of apes went extinct. One lineage survived by leaving the trees and foraging on the ground. Whereas apes in trees gobbled fresh fruit, those on the ground found fallen fruit, which ferments. Thus, our ancestors may have acquired a taste for alcohol–which allowed them to use these scarce calories. This “drunken monkey” hypothesis suggests that a love of the smell and taste of alcohol, the sign of an energy-rich fruit, gave our ancestors an edge. Their chosen poison would have been fairly weak. A study of overripe wild Panamanian palm fruits found none stronger than 5% alcohol—about the same as a Heineken.“

darubedarob 10mo ago
There is that pet theory that alcohlism also converted us from nomads to agrarian societies as mead and bear are impractical to make year round while on the move.

SanjayMehta 10mo ago

It's just The Economist: they specialise in click bait written in a dry, British professor style.

m463 10mo ago

clickbait 101