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. Normally, when worms are put in a petri dish that contains alcohol, they become drunk.
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