Since scientists get bored sometimes, Christopher Olson from the Oregon Health & Science University decided to find out if the birds he worked with would also suffer vocally if they had a little alcohol in them. So one day he added some to their juice, in an act that would be totally illegal if it involved humans, but it was just some finches, so fuck it.
The scientist said he wasn't even sure the finches would drink the booze, but that in the end they were "somewhat willing to consume it," which I can only assume means it took hours of peer pressure about how they needed to be cooler if lady finches were ever going to go out with them. The results were pretty much what you would expect, but way funnier because they are birds. The finches' songs became "less organized" and they slurred whatever the avian equivalent of words are.
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It goes without saying that their app scores plummeted.
Since getting birds drunk is obviously tons of fun, Olson isn't done yet. He plans on seeing if being drunk affects his finches' abilities to learn new songs as well, like when someone insists you duet with them on a song you have never heard before when you can barely keep the words in focus.
But it is not just birds that scientists have a weird obsession with getting wasted ...
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