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07-29-2008, 01:34 PM
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#1
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Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 971
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A new mascot
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07-29-2008, 01:44 PM
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#2
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Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: "Detroitish" Michigan
Posts: 36,054
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Yeah NPR did a great story on it last night....
Click "Listen Live" to hear... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93001529
Quote:
Beer-Drinking Tree Shrews: Sober As Judges
In the rain forest of Malaysia, scientists have found a small mammal, closely related to primates, whose major source of food is a type of beer.
It's believed to be the only animal other than humans that chronically consumes alcohol. But this animal never appears drunk, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This little critter, the pentail tree shrew, is about 4 inches long; it weighs just a few ounces.
"It looks like a mix between a squirrel and a mouse," says Frank Weins, a biologist from Bayreuth University in Germany, who lived in western Malaysia studying these tiny mammals.
"They have this very strange naked tail. The tip looks like a bird feather."
With big eyes that face forward, and tiny grasping fingers and toes, the tree shrew is an evolutionary cousin of primates. They're nocturnal and spend most nights out in the jungle drinking nectar.
"They walk up and down the cluster of flowers and lick off nectar from the different flower buds," Weins says.
But they have one favorite food source: the bertam palm, whose flowers have a very strong and distinctive smell. "They smell like a brewery," Weins says.
In fact, the flower buds function as brewing chambers — they have been invaded by previously unknown species of yeast, which ferment the nectar into frothy alcohol.
"The maximum alcohol concentration that we recorded was 3.8 percent," Weins says. "That's in the range of a beer."
And the tree shrews spend several hours each night drinking this palm beer. Weins calculates that the tree shrew is imbibing what would be the human equivalent of nine glasses of wine an evening. However, the pentail tree shrew shows no signs of being drunk.
"They move normally on the palms when they go for the nectar," Weins says. "There's no sign of motor incoordination or other odd behaviors. They just move as efficiently as they would on any other tree."
Weins says there are no pentail tree shrews in captivity, so it hasn't been possible to do lab tests to detect intoxication.
But with jungle predators always lurking, Weins says, it would be very risky for a little mammal in the wild to be tipsy or drunk.
And that leads Weins to believe that the tree shrew probably has a specially evolved metabolism that detoxifies the alcohol quickly, keeping the alcohol concentration in the brain very low.
As a result, the tree shrew is able to detoxify alcohol more efficiently than its primate cousins: humans.
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__________________
Revvy's one of the cool reverends. He has a Harley and a t-shirt that says on the back "If you can read this, the bitch was Raptured. - Madman
I gotta tell ya, just between us girls, that Revvy is HOT. Very tall, gorgeous grey hair and a terrific smile. He's very good looking in person, with a charismatic personality... he drives like a ****ing maniac! - YooperBrew
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07-29-2008, 01:49 PM
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#3
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Ohio
Posts: 7,818
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That little guy is my hero.
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Originally Posted by the_bird
Well, if you *love* it.... again, note that my A.S.S. has five pounds.
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07-29-2008, 03:17 PM
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#4
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Burien, WA
Posts: 620
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Beer in the wild - now I have heard of everything.
I remember seeing apes and elephants fighting over fermented fruit because they were able to get a little loose by eating the foul rotten things. I cannot remember where that came from, though.
__________________
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. --Frank Zappa
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07-29-2008, 03:44 PM
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#5
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: East Dundee, Illinois
Posts: 4,961
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I want some of that yeast... would be fun to ferment with that, maybe do a mead since it is fermenting nectar?
__________________
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V
Primary: Nothin
Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead
Kegged: Crappy infected mild
Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash
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07-29-2008, 09:46 PM
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#6
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Norwalk, Ohio
Posts: 10,280
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If we had a mascot it should be Red. (I mean a noun, not a colour) 
__________________
Why do they never tell you they are a guy until AFTER you put your hand up their skirt?
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