Is Emotional Hangover Real?
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/i...eal-202628
EXCERPT: Everyone has heard of the hangover, it is that sluggish feeling after drinking too much alcohol- A group of psychologists now contend that emotional experiences can induce physiological and internal brain states that persist for long periods of time after the emotional events have ended. In other words, your emotions can cause a hangover.
How the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis Explains Our Taste for Liquor
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...ey/511046/
EXCERPT: Drinking and producing alcohol are among the most universal of human behaviors. On the face of it, there is no obvious connection between today’s casual (or excessive) drinking of alcohol, and the natural ecology of monkeys, apes, and other primates living in tropical forests. So why do we have such an instinct for drink? Could the most commonly used of all psychoactive substances occur in natural environments, and could our ancestors really have been exposed to alcohol on a regular basis?
The ‘drunken monkey’ hypothesis proposes that alcohol, and primarily the ethanol molecule, is routinely consumed by all animals that eat fruits and nectar. As first worked out by Louis Pasteur in the 19th century, fermentation is a natural process deriving from the metabolic action of yeasts on sugar molecules. The molecules produce alcohol to kill off their bacterial competitors, and the booze accumulates at low concentrations within fruits and nectar. It also wafts into the environment, producing a downwind vapor trail that reliably indicates the presence of fruits and sugars. Any animal that can sense and follow this odor upwind will come to the source of ethanol and, of course, the sugars within the fruit. In tropical forests, ripe fruit occurs patchily, so any ability to find it over long distances is beneficial....
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/i...eal-202628
EXCERPT: Everyone has heard of the hangover, it is that sluggish feeling after drinking too much alcohol- A group of psychologists now contend that emotional experiences can induce physiological and internal brain states that persist for long periods of time after the emotional events have ended. In other words, your emotions can cause a hangover.
How the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis Explains Our Taste for Liquor
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...ey/511046/
EXCERPT: Drinking and producing alcohol are among the most universal of human behaviors. On the face of it, there is no obvious connection between today’s casual (or excessive) drinking of alcohol, and the natural ecology of monkeys, apes, and other primates living in tropical forests. So why do we have such an instinct for drink? Could the most commonly used of all psychoactive substances occur in natural environments, and could our ancestors really have been exposed to alcohol on a regular basis?
The ‘drunken monkey’ hypothesis proposes that alcohol, and primarily the ethanol molecule, is routinely consumed by all animals that eat fruits and nectar. As first worked out by Louis Pasteur in the 19th century, fermentation is a natural process deriving from the metabolic action of yeasts on sugar molecules. The molecules produce alcohol to kill off their bacterial competitors, and the booze accumulates at low concentrations within fruits and nectar. It also wafts into the environment, producing a downwind vapor trail that reliably indicates the presence of fruits and sugars. Any animal that can sense and follow this odor upwind will come to the source of ethanol and, of course, the sugars within the fruit. In tropical forests, ripe fruit occurs patchily, so any ability to find it over long distances is beneficial....