For a substance that humans have consumed in massive quantities for millennia, alcohol is still a surprisingly big headache for science.
For example, it is not entirely clear why wine, schnapps or beer are so intoxicating, says Sebastian Mueller, director of the Heidelberg Center for Alcohol Research.
The fact that people get drunk as quickly as they experience it cannot be explained by previous theories. How the drug disappears from the body has by no means been clarified down to the last detail. And why exactly people can be plagued by headaches and hangovers after too much enjoyment or the wrong mix, also remains a mystery, even if very sober scientists try to solve it. Now there is news: Alcohol is probably more of a mental issue than expected. American researchers can show in mice that alcohol is broken down in the brain - with consequences.