What Drunk Prairie Voles Can Tell Us About Booze And Relationships
Prairie voles Emory University / YouTube As any student of life can attest, alcohol can bring romantic pairs closer together, but it can also break them apart, by greasing the wheels of extra-partner dalliance. Scientists set out to explore the dual nature of intoxication, and to see if there were differences in how it affected each gender. Naturally, they tested this by getting a bunch of prairie voles drunk. As Rachel Nuwer explains in a thoroughly entertaining post at Smithsonian, the scientists picked voles because they are quite faithful, as far as mammals are concerned--and they needed to sacrifice a few afterward to look at their brains. In the experiment, the scientists allowed the voles to drink as much alcohol as they wanted over a 24-hour period, during which time they paired male and female voles (who weren't already in a monogamous relationship)...