Robert Dudley, a Berkeley colleague, has proposed the “drunken monkey” hypothesis to explain the widespread human use of dietary ethanol. His eponymous book was inspired by the death of his own father, which was hastened by AUD. The gist of Dudley’s idea is that the ethanol produced by brewer’s yeast in fruits can reliably signal ripeness to animals. This sign helps them find the fruit while also increasing consumption rates and the dispersal of swallowed seeds.
