If your babies are in danger of being usurped by grisly body-snatchers, there’s only one thing for it—ply them with booze as soon as possible.

Last year, Todd Schlenke from Emory University in Atlanta showed that the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster uses alcohol as medicinefruit fly Drosophila melanogaster uses alcohol as medicinefruit fly Drosophila melanogaster uses alcohol as medicine. Like many insects, these flies are targeted by parasitic wasps that lay eggs in their bodies. To stop the newly hatched wasps from devouring them alive, the fly larvae consume alcohol at toxic levels. This kills many of the wasp grubs and causes crippling deformities in the survivors. But the flies, which live in a naturally boozy world