ein prosit

Wanna hear something pretty cool?

Yeah, ya do.

A recent Washington Post article posits that beer & alcohol have contributed to the survival of our species, and those who prefer alcohol had an edge over those who didn't because they weren't drinking as much dirty water. So our current society has legions of alcoholic ancestors to thank for the fact that we're alive today!:

To avoid dangerous water, people had to drink large quantities of, say, beer. But to digest that beer, individuals needed a genetic advantage that not everyone had -- what Johnson describes as the body's ability to respond to the intake of alcohol by increasing the production of particular enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases. This ability is controlled by certain genes on chromosome four in human DNA, genes not evenly distributed to everyone. Those who lacked this trait could not, as the saying goes, "hold their liquor." So, many died early and childless, either of alcohol's toxicity or from waterborne diseases.

The gene pools of human settlements became progressively dominated by the survivors -- by those genetically disposed to, well, drink beer. "Most of the world's population today," Johnson writes, "is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol."

So today, pour one out in remembrance of our alcoholic forefathers. Happy hump day!