firehose

Scientists in Texas have generated worms that can’t get drunk after ingesting alcohol. The study, published in The Journal of Neuroscience today, relates how the researchers were able to alter a common human alcohol target — a molecular channel that binds alcohol in the brain — in Caenorhabditis elegans worms by modifying the worm’s genetic makeup. This, the researcher say, is the first example of scientists modifying a human alchohol target to successfully prevent intoxication in an animal.

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drunk worms crawl more slowly and don't wiggle as much

Normally, when worms are put in a petri dish that contains alcohol, they become drunk. For a worm, this mean not being able to wiggle from side to side as much. It also means crawling much more slowly. But with the modified channel, the worms acted just as they did without the alcohol. The researchers were able to do this by tweaking the human alcohol target just enough to prevent "a research model worm from getting drunk," said Jonathan Pierce-Shimomura, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-author of the study, in an email to The Verge.

Moreover, "the way we tweaked it did not perturb the normal function of the target, allowing it continue functioning normally in the worm's brain," Pierce-Shimomura said. This is important because the channel that the researchers modified — called the BK channel SLO-1 — also plays a role in regulating the activity of blood vessels, neurons, and the urinary tract. "It is remarkable that [a] mutation … could have such a dramatic specific effect on ethanol modulation while minimally affecting basal BK channel function," the researchers wrote in the study.

"We tried a brute force approach, testing hundreds of mutations."

To find this target, Pierce-Shimomura and his team proceeded largely by trial-and-error. "We tried a brute force approach, testing hundreds of mutations to empirically determine which one would allow the BK channel to function normally [while still] preventing alcohol from activating it." Eventually, they stumbled upon a genetic modification of the channel that stopped it from activating in the presence of ethanol.

This effect is very different from or "alcohol flush reaction," a condition that causes certain people, mostly of Asian descent, to process alcohol inefficiently. "Asian flush is due to slow metabolism of alcohol which produces a by-product called acetyladehyde," Pierce-Shimomura explained. "This is a poison, so people with Asian flush are being poisoned when they drink alcohol."

The researchers now hope to develop drugs that would have the same effect in mice — and eventually humans. "We found a way that future drugs may target a single human brain protein, called the BK channel, to stop alcohol from activating it and causing intoxication," Pierce-Shimomura said. If the scientists could find a drug that has the same effect as the mutation, they might be able to help people overcome addiction and the effects of withdrawal.

Of course, any drug of this nature is a long way off from human trials. And even if they do find such a drug, it probably wouldn't get rid of all the symptoms of intoxication, because alcohol acts on multiple targets in the human brain. Still, Pierce-Shimomura said, alcoholism "is a huge problem in society that needs more effort and funding. Almost everyone knows someone touched by alcohol abuse," so this is a path worth investigating further.

It's rare for a public figure to shun Twitter, but Jason Segel, the actor known for How I Met Your Mother and currently starring in the upcoming movie Sex Tape, has revealed why he quit. In an interview with Variety, Segel explains that he left Twitter after an ill-fated decision in late-night snacking when he accidentally incited an internet riot. According to Segel: "At one point, at 3AM, I was deciding between eating a sandwich and a burrito, and I ate a sandwich," said Segel. "It was delicious, and I tweeted: 'Sandwiches are better than burritos.' And then there was a firestorm of debate."

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"'You don’t know about burritos', they’d say."

While it hasn't been used since 2012, Segel's Twitter feed is still up, complete with the burritos-versus-sandwiches debate.  It appears that the tweet more accurately reads: "Burritos are all very similar. They taste the same. They are not like sandwiches." Segel isn't the first celebrity to quit Twitter over controversy, though most, including Alec Baldwin and Chris Brown, return soon after. So far, the rage generated by questioning the Internet's love of burritos has kept Segel away, though he did manage to attract at least 2.5 million followers in his short time on Twitter. In his defense, Segel did try to make amends.

Magic: The Gathering is the quintessential trading card game that started it all, and I want to get into it. I was never much interested in it before recently - but my best friend from back in high school got in touch with me this summer and told me she and a bunch of our old friends were planning to start playing. I bought her a deck builder's toolkit for her birthday, and now my birthday is almost upon me.

Next week I turn 22, and I know I plan to buy myself something M:tG related for my birthday, but I'm entirely overwhelmed by options. For instance, is it better to go with an intro deck, a deck builder's toolkit, or a fat pack? And which one? I think I'm most interested in a Red/Green and a Black deck, least interested in Blue and White (from what I've read, anyways). I'm just planning on playing casually, probably not in tournaments or anything big, as I'm a University student with little funds to go around. I've had two friends who are long time players offer to give me a couple of cards, but I have no idea when they'll be giving me those or what cards those are. I'll mostly be playing a group of four friends who are also new, and with two other friends who have been playing casually for a few years. So I don't need to be the very best, like no one ever was. I'll settle for just being, you know, not completely pathetic.

So, yeah, if you had to recommend a good plan for starting out with less than $50 to spend, what would you recommend?

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