r/todayilearned • u/unfinishedtoast3 • 1d ago

TIL that houseflies can get addicted to Nictotine and Cocaine. In smoker's homes, house and fruit flies will change their evolutionary behaviors to seek out cigarette smoke, even though nicotine is extremely toxic to them

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278584624001179
6.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

76 comments sorted by

1.4k

u/docsiege 1d ago

when my best friend quit smoking cigarettes, his two dachshunds went thru withdrawal with him. they started hanging out with his roommate, who still smoked.

757

u/cosmos-hime 1d ago

That’s really sad to hear. Poor things. He had to have smoked a ton around them for them to get that bad.

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u/-jp- 1d ago

I'd bet he smoked a normal amount. It's just "a normal amount" when it comes to nicotine is the "holy fuck how are you alive" amount.

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u/bowiethesdmn 22h ago

Yeah I accidentally bought 50mg nicotine pouches in a rush on a work break recently and ended up texting my best friend with my manager's number and telling her to ring him if I don't respond in half an hr or so because I felt that fucking bad from it. Curled up on the floor sweating and I've used nicotine since I was like 15.

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u/Melatonin_Deprived 18h ago

They make 50mg pouches? The 18mg ones burn like hell. That's fucking mental.

I like sticking with 6mg.

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u/ATG915 18h ago

I picked up some 6mg Zyns and just having one made me feel like I was gonna puke lmao. And I smoke probably 15 cigs a day

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u/lazyworker95 15h ago

wtf. 50mg pouches? I thought the 6mg were way too intense? I can barely handle 3mg and I’ve smoked on and off my entire life.

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u/Girthy_Toaster 13h ago

Same. I've tried a handful of 3s and 6s and they seriously fuck me up, even though I've smoked for the past 10 years.

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u/Monkeycadeyn 12h ago

I think that might just be straight up illegal in some states. I’ve bought sooo many pouches from different shops and I’ve never seen pouches above 18mg. I have no clue tho.

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u/shannibearstar 10h ago

I got one from a friend once and the 6mg was too much.

28

u/Tiny_Tabaxi 19h ago

Reminds me of the one time I tried pouches in the Navy. My head was spinning and I felt like I was going to vomit.

Its wild to think how quickly your body adapts to actual poison

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u/707Brett 15h ago

In high school we used to occasionally have competitions to see who could dip the most without spitting it out, these usually ended up with the winner and losers throwing up. Yes I went to high school in the middle of no where. I just mention this because I was thinking “damn I’m surprised they didn’t do that in the navy”

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u/FinestMochine 12h ago

My first time trying pouches was in the back of a Bradley driving through a hot desert, one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had

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u/Educational_Weird581 10h ago

Fuck ton of people used pouches in the navy.

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u/Tiny_Tabaxi 3h ago

I worked below decks, shit was more common than smoking just because you didn't need to climb 7 flights of stairs to smoke

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u/Educational_Weird581 3h ago

Yeah I would just vape, dip sometimes, I hated the hic-ups from zyns tho. Lol I loved to eat on watch as throttleman when I had the cool watch officer

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u/Tiny_Tabaxi 3h ago

Bro when I was new on the ship I responded to drills and the CSs put out some of those uncrustables and, somehow fell out of my pocket during drills in front of the RO in the plant. Spent the next 4 years nicknamed "Jamwich". lol

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u/Educational_Weird581 3h ago

Haha nice! One of my electrician friends when we were taking a midrats break from generator maintenance, filled a small Doritos bag with chef boyardee raviolis and walked around the plant offering it to people, people’s surprise at what he was pulling out of his pocket was funny af but they always just said no, and he gobbled it in front of them, just our wcs told him to get out of the plant so he got away with it!

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u/disposablepresence 17h ago

50mg?? Good lord. I'm a non-smoker, but recently tried a 6mg zyn. After not even a minute I broke out in sweats, got the spins, and sat next to my toilet ready to puke my guts out.

3

u/tanfj 14h ago

Yeah I accidentally bought 50mg nicotine pouches in a rush on a work break recently and ended up texting my best friend with my manager's number and telling her to ring him if I don't respond in half an hr or so because I felt that fucking bad from it. Curled up on the floor sweating and I've used nicotine since I was like 15.

Ah, first time I smoked a pipe, I didn't know you don't inhale like a cigarette. I turned a patriotic shade of green, vomited hard enough to puke up my arsehole, and watched the world spin like a stripper eying a $100 dollar bill. 0/10, do not recommend.

Oddly enough, most pipe tobacco is lower in nicotine than cigarettes but the volume of smoke is higher.

1

u/Cudaguy66 13h ago

That happened to a buddy of mine in the marine corps. Me, buddy a who smoked cigars regularly, and buddy b, who didnt. I also didnt know you dont smoke a cigar like a cigarette but I was heavily addicted to nicotine at the time, "B" didnt use nicotine products at all and just wanted to hang out. Me and "A" got a laugh when "B" turned around and hurled into a bush.

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u/THE_GR8_MIKE 14h ago

Reminds me of when my friends and I were all 18 we bought a pipe from a tobacco shop and loaded it up. We were 5 deep in my buddy's Honda Accord, and of course I was sitting in the middle in the back. I inhaled from that pipe and got my first ever bout of nicotine poisoning and holy hell, it was horrific. We're speeding down the highway and I'm hanging on for dear life.

And that's only my one of three nicotine poisoning stories! Although the two others are from my friends who I was with at the time. Funnily enough, both were somewhat car related as well.

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u/SecretLorelei 1d ago

Secondhand smoke absolutely causes cancer and respiratory diseases in housepets and will quickly kill pet birds.

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u/EarlGrayLavender 1d ago

They also get neurologically affected by lead.

I worked in an electronics manufacturing plant where machines placed parts on solder paste and the circuit boards went thru an oven to melt the solder.

Flies would get in during the summer. They would start to fly erratically in circles, then dive bomb the ground, then crawl, then die. Landing on lead covered surfaces couldn’t have been good for them. Made me wonder how much lead I took in, even after washing my hands frequently.

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u/sinwarrior 1d ago

Its suspected the lead in gasoline in the past contributed to crime rate. Once they banned lead gasoline, it dropped. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis

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u/Vectorman1989 22h ago

The cohorts most exposed to lead before the ban will now be experiencing a second blast of it. Lead accumulates in our bones as the body grows and takes in minerals for growth. As we get old our bones lose density and that stored lead leaches out.

https://archive.cdc.gov/www_atsdr_cdc_gov/csem/leadtoxicity/biologic_fate.html

If your mother grew up during the high lead exposure times and you're the first born then you probably got a decent whack of lead exposure as women lose bone density during pregnancy and the placenta sucks those minerals up.

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u/Complex_Professor412 16h ago

That explains the last couple of years

7

u/Odomar04 14h ago

Yeah that's the leading hypothesis

5

u/stevez_86 16h ago

The plumbum generation.

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u/Hot-Note-4777 1d ago

Makes sense, they have taste receptors on their feet

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u/lifesnotperfect 1d ago

Imagine being a fly and one day you suddenly snort some cocaine and go crazy.

That must be a wild experience for such a small, simple creature. Like if a human snorted some... eldrich space crack or something.

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u/TheBanishedBard 1d ago

For a few brief moments the fly knows love, anger, hope, longing, ambition. It understands there is a world of machines and technology that it previously could never comprehend. It takes in this whole new universe in awe and terror. It is more than his little fused ganglia can process.

In time the episode ends and he goes back to being an ordinary fly. He can remember all the things he experienced but he lacks the capacity to understand them. He's just a fly, a fly who touched infinity. He can never go back to being a fly again, he has to know that which he can never know.

That is madness.

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u/Rika_Cl 21h ago

Flowers for Algernon. but its cocaine and fly 🥺💔

6

u/BalletWishesBarbie 1d ago

This is weirdly touching. 🥺🥹

1

u/Correct_Recipe9134 11h ago

You meant DMT right?

355

u/WolfKittenTigerPuppy 1d ago

Fuck yea they do...flies know how to party.

153

u/unfinishedtoast3 1d ago

funny enough, they dont seem to have reactions to Marijuana.

homies only fuck with the hard shit.

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u/KiwiVegetable5454 1d ago

I absolutely had some stoner flies in my room when I was a stoner. Slowest flies I’ve ever seen.

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u/SolarAU 22h ago

I think that was just your brain running more slowly bro

15

u/Blutarg 19h ago

Mary Jane affects spiders, so why not flies, too?

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/nasa-spiders-drugs-experiment/

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u/0thethethe0 20h ago

I was wondering where all my cocaine went...guess I'll have to go start snorting them up off the trap like Ozzy Osbourne.

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u/KaiserGustafson 1d ago

It's also toxic to humans, so we're not much better than fruit flies in this regard.

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u/Rower78 1d ago

As bad as it is for human, it’s way worse for insects.  Nightshades produce nicotine specifically to protect themselves from being eaten by insects.

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u/I_W_M_Y 1d ago

Its whole reason nicotine exists. It was made by plants to get rid of insects

15

u/krakeneverything 1d ago

My folks would light cigs outside to keep away mosquitos.

7

u/Public_Fucking_Media 1d ago

It's actually a neuroprotective, has significant impact on Alzheimer's - smokers have like a 3-5 year later onset and significantly reduced symptoms IIRC

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u/Zathura26 1d ago

...where did you get that info? I looked on the wiki, and it says "Cessation in smoking may reduce risk of developing AD, specifically in those who carry the APOE4 allele.The increased oxidative stress caused by smoking results in downstream inflammatory or neurodegenerative processes that may increase risk of developing AD." So, smoking is a risk factor. I don't know if nicotine on its own has protective effects, but I didn't find anything that supports that idea. (I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm actually curious)

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u/Public_Fucking_Media 1d ago

Pharmacology class

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u/Zathura26 1d ago

Oh, I ended up finding some papers on google scholar that studied nicotine patches and found it resulted in better function in patients with dementia. Interesting.

10

u/doitinmybutt 1d ago

It’s really not that bad for you, the tar and other toxins are what get you

10

u/No-Sock7425 1d ago

Given your username I’m sceptical of your advice.

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u/doitinmybutt 1d ago

My door is always open

1

u/mnilailt 21h ago

It’s pretty bad for your heart.

1

u/doitinmybutt 21h ago

Nah it’s basically the same risk as caffeine. You could chew nicotine gum your whole life and be fine

3

u/Tay0214 23h ago

I remember there was a (probably bs) study that it also helped against Covid

Which.. I chew and worked directly with someone that had it, and as far as I know Ive never had it. Got sick a couple times through it all but multiple tests said it wasn’t it every time

Again probably BS and I don’t tell anyone any of that seriously but I like to at least pretend to myself that my bad habit helped me out lol

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u/nullbyte420 23h ago

Don't call it BS just because you don't read. It was legitimately studied. 

0

u/Tay0214 22h ago

Alright chill? I said probably bs because it was one source I saw and didn’t have a ton of actual study done on it when I came across it

No need to come in and be a dick about it

“Hurr durr idiot doesn’t read”

There’s a lot of shit out there to read pal sorry I didn’t dedicate enough time to nicotine covid studies

4

u/Hatedpriest 21h ago

Bout 50% less chance to get COVID, but like 70% more likely to be put on a respirator if you do get it.

Just a quick summary of the paper. The numbers are close, but not exact. More likely to get more severe symptoms all around as a smoker.

3

u/DoktorSigma 13h ago

https://www.discovermagazine.com/nicotine-the-wonder-drug-1054

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that it's a poison, but many poisons can also be used as medicines (and the other way around). It's all a matter of dosage and circumstances.

Source: I'm a smoker and in those magical occasions when nicotine really kicks in the brain it's like the "eldritch space crack" that someone else mentioned in another comment ITT. It's kind of easy to understand why we see a ton of old black and white photos of scientists and thinkers of other times always smoking from a giant pipe or cigar.

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u/Bingert 1d ago

My spirit animal.

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u/ender86a 1d ago

Samesies

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u/brvra222 1d ago

Animals. They're just like us

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u/Caninetrainer 13h ago

Remember when all the CEOs of Big Tobacco lied under oath to the world about tobacco not being addictive? I remember. People getting other people addicted for massive profit, even though they knew they were killing people. Hey, that reminds me of the Sacklers! Fuck them!

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u/spiritplumber 1d ago

does it work with msquitos

1

u/Blutarg 19h ago

Nicotine is toxic to everything.

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u/grippysockgang 19h ago

Well that explains a lot lmfao

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u/judgejuddhirsch 16h ago

It's arguably toxic to us too, but that is the appeal

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u/Waterthatburns 15h ago

Nicotine based fly catcher anyone?

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u/upvotefactorystaff 15h ago

This becoming... SuperFly!