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Science

17 photos of animals that prove there's nothing natural about traditional gender roles

These animals demonstrate the greatness of nature and its stubborn unwillingness to conform to human expectations for the way things "should be."

animals, nature, gender roles, traditional
Image via Pixabay.

We have our eyes on you too.

Traditional gender roles are "natural," goes the common refrain.

Heterosexuality? That's natural too, apparently. Staying one gender your whole life? Definitely natural.

There's only one problem: Nature (and science) beg to disagree.


In reality, male and female animals set up their relationships thousands of different ways in the wild. In many species, males are the primary caretakers of the next generation while females ignore their offspring and mate promiscuously. Even the existence of "male" and "female" as distinct categories is often not so clear in certain species.

Some animals have the ability to change sex to respond to various outside pressures and conditions.

A few can even mate with themselves.

Here are 17 animals that demonstrate the greatness of nature and its stubborn unwillingness to conform to human expectations for the way things "should be."

1. Jacanas

birds, science, nature, incubation

"Mom went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back."

​Photo by Ozan Kill

Ask any tropical bird out there, and they'll tell you that male jacanas are pretty much the best dads of the bunch. Not only do male jacanas stick around the nest to incubate the eggs and raise their offspring, they even carry them under-wing when they fly.

Meanwhile, female jacanas are ... not exactly super nurturing. After gathering up a harem of nearly half a dozen males and laying her eggs, the female jacana splits in order to fly around, murder the young of rival females, and mate with their former partners.

This is considered charming.

2. Clown fish

species, environment, reefs, fish

Clown fish were invented by Disney/Pixar in 2003.

Photo by Rachel Hisko on Unsplash

Like many species of reef fish, clown fish can, and frequently do, change sex. Unlike most species of reef fish however, all clown fish are born male and are led (in familial groups) by a dominant female.

When she dies, the next-biggest male simply ... becomes female and takes charge of the group.

What you just heard was the sound of a billion other species slapping themselves on the forehead at the same time, wondering why they didn't think of that, realizing it's now too late and that now they'd just be, like, hopping on the trend.

3. African buffalo

leadership, hierarchies, grazing, grasslands

Everyone is getting out there for an afternoon stroll.

Photo by Soerfm/Wikimedia Commons.

Not only are female buffalos are responsible for coordinating the movements of the entire herd — they do it democratically. When it's time to find a new grazing spot, each female takes a turn standing up and gazing in the direction they want to travel, and when they're done, the whole group moves that way.

While status hierarchies exist within herds, the elections are equitable — one cow, one vote.

Change You Can Moo-Lieve in. Make the Grasslands Great Again.

4. Bees

matriarchy, male drones, hive, honey

"Aaaaaaagh! Aaaaaagh! Aaaaaagh!" — Nicholas Cage.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Bees famously take the matriarchy to the extreme. A single queen bee oversees thousands of smaller female workers and male drones.

While most bees live, at most, a few weeks, the queen typically survives several years before the hive goes looking for a new queen to start the cycle over again. All to advance the species-wide goal of refusing to fly out of your car even though all four windows are down.

5. Komodo dragons

komodo dragon, eggs, offspring, evolution

Party out with your tongue out... alone even.

Photo by Mark Dumont/Wikimedia Commons.

Female komodo dragons can lay viable eggs that produce offspring without a male partner, which pretty much explains why komodo dragon Tinder never truly caught on.

6. Praying mantises

copulation, life cycle, insects, hunters

Not as romantic as it looks.

Photo by Oliver Koemmerling/Wikimedia Commons.

Mantis males are often smaller than mantis females, a discrepancy that leaves many males feeling insecure, as it enables females to frequently — though not always — eat their heads during sex.

7. Common reed frogs

amphibians, forrest, frogs, reproduction

So many choices for the day ahead.

Photo by ChriKo/Wikimedia Commons.

These tiny, resilient amphibians can change sex from female to male, allowing them to successfully reproduce if they suddenly find themselves surrounded by frogs of the same sex.

This ability makes them one of the most successful species on Earth at inspiring anxious Sam Neil monologues.

8. South American marmosets

monkeys, jungle, troops, community

"Hey, pa? You ... you wanna ... play catch?"

Photo by Maxim Bilovitskiy/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Creative_Commons.

Female marmosets tend not to be terribly interested in their babies. A few weeks after giving birth, they're mostly out of their kids' lives forever.

Marmoset dads, on the other hand, are excellent caretakers, feeding, grooming, and transporting their young as well as coaching Marmoset Little League and always batting their kid cleanup.

9. Spotted hyenas

aggression, dominance, African plains, arid climates

Someone has to lead this party.

Photo via Pixabay.

Not only are female hyenas stronger and more aggressive than males, male and female hyena genitals are nearly identical in appearance. They're so similar that it's extremely difficult to tell the difference with the naked eye, which ultimately doomed the '70s game show "What Sex is That Hyena?" to cancellation after just half a season.

10. Seahorses

eggs, mating process, sea life, oceans

"OK, so. I need a really big favor."

Photo by Mikhail Preobrazhenskiy on Unsplash

While males of numerous species nurture their offspring, the male seahorse takes things several steps further. During the mating process, he receives eggs from the female and not only fertilizes them, but carries the offspring until they hatch.

A recent poll of male seahorses found that an overwhelming majority experience a secret surge of satisfaction when their partners get kidney stones.

11. Cuttlefish

coloration, species rivalries, genetics, fish

Blumph.

Photo by Michal B. on Unsplash

Unlike middle school boys across America, male cuttlefish don't have a lot of hang-ups about appearing feminine to their peers. Masters of camouflage, these future delicious fried antipasto will often alter their coloration in order to pass for female around rival males.

If an actual female is around, they'll leave the other half of their body as is, appearing half male and half female.

12. Topi antelopes

Africa, herd animals, promiscuity, food

Oh hey.

Photo by Whit Welles/Wikimedia Commons.

Female topi antelopes are not only sexually promiscuous, but when it's time to mate, they almost always make the first move. In some cases, female topis pester male antelopes for sex so relentlessly that the male has to physically fight them off. (Cue dozens of Facebook commenters yelling at male antelopes for complaining about something that's "obviously awesome" and insisting they're lucky and should "just be grateful for the attention.")

13. Laysan albatrosses

birds, mating, wildlife

"Al." "Al."

Photo by Patte David/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Public Domain Images.

Some female albatrosses mate in female-female pairs, often for life.

(Side note: All male albatrosses are named Al Batross. Every single one of them. That's a proven fact).

14. Banana slugs

slugs, sex organs, horror

"When I think about you..."

Image via Pixabay.

A hermaphroditic species, banana slugs have both male and female sex organs and occasionally mate with themselves.

Though banana slugs do seem to prefer mating with other slugs, doing so typically ends with one slug chewing the other's penis off, because nature is a cavalcade of endless, random horror.

15. Orcas

whales, pods, matriarchal, peers

"You have to hit the home button twice, grandma."

Photo by Mike Doherty on Unsplash

Killer whales live in matriarchal pods, and female whales are more likely to take charge of the group than their male peers.

The oldest female whales are often the go-to source for information about where to find food, and in exchange for keeping the whole family alive, the younger whales patiently show them time and again how to use the iPad.

16. Emperor penguins

documentaries, Antartica, frozen tundra, trekking

"Where is that voice coming from?"

Photo via Pixabay.

Anyone who's seen "March of the Penguins" knows that male emperor penguins guard their eggs tightly, perilously balancing them on their feet while their female companions go off to do traditional woman stuff like trekking across the Antarctic tundra, diving for food in the freezing cold ocean, and pleading with Morgan Freeman to shut the hell up so they can focus on not being eaten by seals for like five goddamn seconds.

17. Bonobos

genetics, sex, apes, animal kingdom

"Mmmmmm. Yeah. Mmmmm. All right. Yeah." — Bonobos, all the time.

Photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash

The female-led bonobos have invented perhaps the most ingenious way of preventing intra-species violence in the entire animal kingdom. Basically, everyone just has sex with everyone else — males with females, females with females, males with males, in pretty much every kind of way imaginable.

The near-constant hetero-homo-orgiastic delight that results pretty much prevents anyone from being mad at anyone ever and unites the species around the common goal of being the best apes ever invented.

We share about 99% of our DNA with bonobos.

via Edith Lemay/NatGeo

Mia, Leo, Colin, and Laurent Pelletier pose on top of their camper van in front of adouble rainbow while in Mongolia.

True

“Blink,” a new film by National Geographic Documentary Films shows how a family with four children, three of whom are going blind, embraces life in the face of an uncertain future. It’s a testament to the resilience of the Lemay-Pelletier family but also a reminder for all of us to seize the day because all our futures are uncertain.

Edith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier are the parents of Mia, a 13-year-old girl, and three boys: Léo, 11, Colin, 9, and Laurent, 7. Over the last six years, they’ve learned that Mia and the two youngest boys have retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease in which the cells of the retina slowly die. As the disease progresses, the person develops “tunnel vision” that shrinks until very little vision remains.

The diagnosis devastated the parents. "The hardest part with the diagnosis was inaction. There's nothing they can do about it. There's no treatment,” Edith says in the film.


However, even though the parents couldn’t affect the progress of the disease, they could give their children’s senses an epic experience that would benefit them for a lifetime.

“We don’t know how fast it’s going to go, but we expect them to be completely blind by mid-life,” said the parents. Mia’s impairment advisor suggested they fill her visual memory with pictures from books. “I thought, I’m not going to show her an elephant in a book; I’m going to take her to see a real elephant,” Edith explains in the film. “And I’m going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can.”

The Pelletier family (from left): Mia, Sebastien, Colin, Edith Lemay, Laurent and Leo inKuujjuaq, Canada.via National Geographic/Katie Orlinsky

This realization led to an inspiring year-long journey across 24 countries, during which every family member experienced something on their bucket list. Mia swam with dolphins, Edith rode a hot-air balloon in Cappadocia, and Léo saw elephants on safari.

Colin realized his dream of sleeping on a moving train while Sébastien saw the historic site of Angkor Wat.

“We were focusing on sights,” explains Pelletier. “We were also focusing a lot on fauna and flora. We’ve seen incredible animals in Africa but also elsewhere. So we were really trying to make them see things that they wouldn’t have seen at home and have the most incredible experiences.”

Cameras followed the family for 76 days as they traveled to far-flung locales, including Namibia, Mongolia, Egypt, Laos, Nepal and Turkey. Along the way, the family made friends with local people and wildlife. In a heartbreaking scene, the boys wept as the family had to leave behind a dog named Bella he befriended in the mountains of Nepal.

But the film isn't just about the wonders of nature and family camaraderie. The family's trip becomes a “nightmare” when they are trapped in a cable car suspended hundreds of feet above the Ecuadorian forest for over 10 hours.

annapurna range, blink, nat geoLeo, Laurent, Edith, Colin, Mia, and Sebastien look out at the mountains in the Annapurna range.via MRC/Jean-Sébastien Francoeur

As expected, NatGeo’s cinematographers beautifully capture the family's journey, and in the case of “Blink,” this majestic vision is of even greater importance. In some of the film's quietest moments, we see the children taking in the world's wonders, from the vast White Desert in Egypt to a fearless butterfly in Nepal, with the full knowledge that their sight will fail one day.

Along the way, the family took as many pictures as possible to reinforce the memories they made on their adventure. “Maybe they’ll be able to look at the photographs and the pictures and they will bring back those stories, those memories, of the family together,” Edith says.

But the film is about more than travel adventures and the pain of grief; ultimately, it’s about family.

“By balancing [the parents’ grief] with a more innocent and joyous tale of childlike wonder and discovery, we felt we could go beyond a mere catalog of locations and capture something universal,” the directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher, said in a statement. “Keeping our camera at kid-height and intimately close to the family, we aimed to immerse the audience in the observational realities of their daily life, as well as the subtle relationships between each of them. This is a film built on looks, gestures and tiny details—the very fabric of our relationships with one another.”

Ultimately, “Blink” is a great film to see with your loved ones because it’s a beautiful reminder to appreciate the wonders of our world, the gift of our senses and the beauty of family.

The film will open in over 150 theaters in the U.S. and Canada beginning Oct. 4 and will debut on National Geographic Channel and stream on Disney+ and Hulu later this year. Visit the “Blink” website for more information.

Family

'It's not Little Sun': Mom admits she's having trouble pronouncing her newborn's name

It was fine 'til other people tried to say it and now she's confused.

via JustusMoms29/TikTok (used with permission)

Justus Stroup is starting to realize her baby's name isn't that common.

One of the many surprises that come with parenthood is how the world reacts to your child’s name. It’s less of a surprise if your child has a common name like John, Mohammed, or Lisa. But if you give your child a non-traditional name that’s gender-neutral, you’re going to throw a lot of folks off-guard and mispronunciations are going to be an issue.

This exact situation happened with TikTok user Justus Stroup, who recently had her second child, but there’s a twist: she isn’t quite sure how to pronounce her child’s name either.

"I may have named my daughter a name I can't even pronounce," Stroup opens the video. "Now, I think I can pronounce it, but I've told a couple of people her name and there are two people who thought I said the same exact thing. So, I don't know that I know how to [pronounce] her name correctly."



@justusmoms29

Just when you think you name your child something normal! #2under2mom #postpartum #newborn #momsoftiktok #uniquenames #babyname #babygirl #sahm #momhumor

Stroup’s daughter is named Sutton and the big problem is how people around her pronounce the Ts. Stroup tends to gloss over the Ts, so it sounds like Suh-en. However, some people go hard on the Ts and call her “Sut-ton.”

"I'm not gonna enunciate the 'Ts' like that. It drives me absolutely nuts," she noted in her TikTok video. "I told a friend her name one time, and she goes, 'Oh, that's cute.' And then she repeated the name back to me and I was like, 'No, that is not what I said.'"

Stroup also had a problem with her 2-year-old son’s speech therapist, who thought the baby’s name was Sun and that there weren’t any Ts in the name at all. "My speech therapist, when I corrected her and spelled it out, she goes, 'You know, living out in California, I have friends who named their kids River and Ocean, so I didn't think it was that far off.'"

Stroup told People that she got the name from a TV show called “The Lying Game,” which she used to watch in high school. "Truthfully, this was never a name on my list before finding out I was pregnant with a girl, but after finding out the gender, it was a name I mentioned and my husband fell in love with," says Stroup. "I still love the name. I honestly thought I was picking a strong yet still unique name. I still find it to be a pretty name, and I love that it is gender neutral as those are the type of names I love for girls."

The mother could choose the name because her husband named their son Greyson.



The commenters thought Stroup should tell people it’s Sutton, pronounced like a button. “I hear it correctly! Sutton like Button. I would pronounce it like you, too!” Amanda wrote.

“My daughter’s name is Sutton. I say it the same way as you. When people struggle with her name, I say it’s Button but with a S. That normally immediately gets them to pronounce it correctly,” Megan added.

After the video went viral, Stroup heard from people named Hunter and Peyton, who are dealing with a similar situation. “I've also noticed the two most common names who run into the same issue are Hunter (people pronouncing it as Hunner or HUNT-ER) and Payton (pronounced Pey-Ton or Pey-tin, most prefer it as Pey-tin),” she told Upworthy.

“Another person commented saying her name is Susan and people always think it is Season or Steven,” Stroup told Upworthy. After having her second child, she learned that people mix up even the simplest names. “No name is safe at this point,” she joked.

The whole situation has Stroup rethinking how she pronounces her daughter’s name. Hopefully, she got some advance on how to tell people how to pronounce it, or else she’ll have years of correcting people in front of her. "Good lord, I did not think this was going to be my issue with this name," she said.

Science

MIT’s trillion-frames-per-second camera can capture light as it travels

"There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera."

Photo from YouTube video.

Photographing the path of light.

A new camera developed at MIT can photograph a trillion frames per second.

Compare that with a traditional movie camera which takes a mere 24. This new advancement in photographic technology has given scientists the ability to photograph the movement of the fastest thing in the Universe, light.


The actual event occurred in a nano second, but the camera has the ability to slow it down to twenty seconds.

time, science, frames per second, bounced light

The amazing camera.

Photo from YouTube video.

For some perspective, according to New York Times writer, John Markoff, "If a bullet were tracked in the same fashion moving through the same fluid, the resulting movie would last three years."


In the video below, you'll see experimental footage of light photons traveling 600-million-miles-per-hour through water.

It's impossible to directly record light so the camera takes millions of scans to recreate each image. The process has been called femto-photography and according to Andrea Velten, a researcher involved with the project, "There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera."

(H/T Curiosity)


This article originally appeared on 09.08.17

OPPO Find X5 Pro & Chris Liverani/Unsplash

Sometimes parenting tricks are deceptively simple.

Tantrums, meltdowns, and emotional outbursts are the bane of parents' existence.

Once they start, they're like a freight train. There seems to be almost no way to stop them other than staying calm and letting them run their course.

That is, until one dad on Reddit revealed his secret method.


A thread titled "Hack your youngster's big emotions with math" has every parent on Reddit saying, why didn't I think of that?

User u/WutTheHuck posted a simple comment on the subreddit r/daddit earlier this month.

"Heard about this recently - when your kid is having a meltdown, doing math engages a different part of their brain and helps them move past the big feelings and calm down," he writes.

"We've been doing this with our very emotional 6-yr-old, when she decides that she wants to cooperate - asking her a handful of simple addition and subtraction questions will very quickly allow her to get control of herself again and talk about her feelings."

So, basically, when the sobs and screams come on strong, having your kid tell you the answer to 3+3, or 10-7 is a good way to get them calm again, and fast.

OP goes on to call the technique "magical," and mentions that his 6-year-old is legendary in his household for her epic tantrums.

The unique trick became a popular post on the subreddit, with a few hundreds comments from dads who were intrigued and willing to give it a try.

A month later, the results are in. The math trick works wonders.

math problemsOK, we said SIMPLE mathAntoine Dautry/unsplash

What struck me as I read through r/daddit was how many follow-up threads there were that said something to the effect of:

The math trick worked!

One user wrote that when his kids woke up screaming from a nightmare, he responded with a simple addition question.

"Soon as my wife closed the door ... [my kid] wanted mommy and started yelling her head off. I remembered the math trick and went 'what's 2+2?' It worked like a charm; the screaming ceased by the second question," he said.

In a separate thread, u/LighTMan913 had a message for "whoever posted here a few days ago about having your kid do mental math when they're upset..."

"You're a mother fudging genius," he said.

"My 7-year-old got in trouble for being mean to his brother shortly before bed time. He was rolled over facing the wall in bed. Wouldn't say goodnight. Just giving mumbles into the bed that are impossible to hear for answers.

"Started with 2+2 and by the time we got to 4096 he was smiling and laughing. 5 minutes after I left the room he called me back in to tell me he thinks he figured out 4096 + 4096 and I worked him through his wrong, albeit very close, answer.

"Worked like a charm. Thank you."

It's not just random dads on the Internet. Experts agree that this method is a bona fide winner for dealing with tantrums and outbursts.

upset kidHelping kids calm down can be a challenge.Annie Spratt/Unsplash

Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and author, had this to say about the viral technique:

"When our emotions rise, our logic decreases. The more emotional we feel, the more difficult it is to think clearly.

"A simple math problem requires you to raise your logic, which automatically decreases the intensity of an emotion."

Morin says that the math trick basically boils down to a distraction. A distraction with the added bonus of re-engaging the logical side of a child's brain.

"If you do what's known as 'changing the channel' in your brain, you get your mind thinking about something else--like a math problem. When you shift your attention, your thoughts change," Morin says, adding that adults can use this concept when they're feeling overwhelmed, too.

"When a child is upset, don't talk about why they're upset or why a tantrum is inappropriate. Instead, help them change the channel in their brains and raise their logic. When everyone is calm, you can have a discussion about how the strategy works--and how they can apply it themselves when you're not available to remind them."

Now I just need to get my 4-year-old up to speed on basic addition and subtraction and I'll be made in the shade!

The grandmother was suspicious.

A grandmother always felt her middle granddaughter Lindsay, 15, looked slightly different from the rest of the family because she had blonde, curly hair, while the rest of her siblings’ hair was dark “I thought genetics was being weird and I love her,” she wrote on Reddit’s AITA forum.

But things became serious after Linday’s parents “banned” her from taking things a step further and getting a DNA test. If the family was sure their daughter was theirs, why would they forbid her from seeking clarity in the situation? After the parents laid down the law, the situation started to seem a little suspicious.

“I told my son and [daughter-in-law] that there was something fishy around her birth she needed to know. They denied it and told me to leave it alone,” the grandma wrote.


Lindsay wouldn’t give up her quest. She approached her biology teacher, who admitted that it was “odd” for her to have such different traits. This confusion was too much for Lindsay, so she went to her grandmother for help. “She came to me distressed, asking me to buy a DNA test since she needs to know,” the grandmother wrote.

dna tests, paternity tests, grandmothers

She had blonde, curly hair. But her siblings all had black hair.

via Allef Vinicius/Unsplash

The grandmother purchased a DNA test and it proved their suspicions. “Long story short, she is not her mother's kid,” the grandmother wrote. “My son got someone else pregnant and her bio mom gave her up.”

The interesting thing was that Lindsay was a middle child. So, the dad had a baby with another woman while he was with his wife. This revelation begs the question: How did the family suddenly have a baby out of nowhere without people being suspicious?

“They were on the other side of the country when she was born, and I met Lindsey when she was about 6 months old. Really not hard to hide the whole thing,” the grandmother wrote. “Our family has a history of miscarriages, so it’s common to drop news about a baby late in the pregnancy. They did the same with their oldest and didn't think anything about it.”

The big revelation has caused friction in the family. The family no longer talks to the grandmother, which makes Lindsay even more furious about the situation.

Should the grandmother have taken such drastic steps if she knew what could happen if her suspicions were true? The commenters on Reddit overwhelmingly supported the grandmother’s decision. The big reason was that Lindsay needed to know her family history for medical reasons.

"Your son and his wife suck for lying to her until she is 15 about something so important and trying to keep lying to her even after she obviously started to question things. There are medical reasons a person might need to know what their genetics are/are not, and if you hadn’t helped her, she would have found out some other way," Shake_Speare423 wrote.

Another commenter noted that protecting the parents’ lie wasn’t nearly as important as Lindsay’s mental health.

"People have a right to know their genetic heritage. Lying about adoption is linked to increased suicidal ideation, anxiety, and depression. You put her safety and comfort ahead of your son’s preferences. Parental rights do not have greater value than a child’s right to access comprehensive medical care, and hiding an adoption does precisely that. Maybe some things, like a child staying healthy, should matter more than a parent's right to lie, gaslight and manipulate their child as they see fit," RemembrancerLirael added.

The commenters overwhelmingly supported the grandma for putting herself into an uncomfortable situation to protect her granddaughter’s mental and physical health. However, one commenter noted that she could have gone about it in a less polarizing way.

“Bit out of the norm for the responses here, but you should have gone through your son [and daughter-in-law] and convinced them. Told them that the biology teacher had highlighted that she had traits that didn't make sense, etc. and convinced them that Lindsey would find out either way,” PhilMcGraw wrote. “It would have allowed them to find a way to tell her without it being forced on them angrily. A DNA test is the absolute worst way to be told. I'm sure they would have much rather told her than let her find out by a DNA test if that is what was coming.”


This article originally appeared on 11.29.23

A doctor's take on drinking at parties

New Year’s Eve is often a night filled with celebratory shots and champagne toasts. But as the party night fast approaches, one doctor is gently reminding folks the importance of partying responsibly during the holidays. Really, it’s a piece of advice that’s important all year long.

Dr. Brian Hoeflinger, an Ohio based neurosurgeon with over two decades of experience, has a TikTok channel filled with educational videos and lifestyle tips. But it’s his latest clip explaining just how long it takes our bodies to break down alcohol that has gone viral.

In the video, which was shared on Christmas Day, Dr. Hoeflinger sets the scene of a party where “a lot of drinks are going down” by setting up a bunch of shot glasses filled with water.

“Say you’re having five drinks in the first hour,” he says, taking five fake, water-filled shots. “As you’re taking them, that alcohol is building up in your system fast. [It] goes to your brain within five minutes and starts to affect you."



The same can’t be said for other parts of the body. As Dr. Hoeflinger noted, “your liver only metabolizes one ounce of alcohol per hour.” And according to Northwestern Medicine, that process only begins 20 minutes after consumption.

Hoflinger continues, “I've got five ounces of liquor in my system right now, and at the end of the hour I'm only going to burn off an ounce…so I'm going to have [four] ounces left in my bloodstream.”

@doctorhoeflinger Knowing this about drinking could save your life! #fyp #party #drinking #alcohol #foryou #holiday #christmas ♬ Storytelling - Adriel

Of course, there are different factors—such as body mass, hormones, medications, etc.—that affect someone’s rate of absorption. And yes, we might be able to form a functional tolerance where behaviorally, we show no signs of intoxication. However, even with all these variables, for the most part all bodies are affected by alcohol similarly. In other words, your blood alcohol level will be more or less the same, and the risks will remain even if you don't "feel drunk."

Hoeflinger continues, saying “the party’s rockin’, so we’re gonna have some more,” while taking three more shots and reminding viewers that he still has only burned off one ounce of liquor during the hour that’s passed.

Now he’s had a total of eight ounces of alcohol in two hours. He’s burned off two, but still has six ounces left in his system—meaning that in this scenario, it will take another six hours to completely burn off.

In hour three, Hoefligner takes one shot since the party is “winding down.” This brings him up to a total of nine ounces of alcohol over three hours. His liver has metabolized three ounces, leaving him (still) with six ounces of liquor left in his bloodstream.

“You’re going to be drunk well into the wee hours of the morning, it doesn’t wear off,” he warns, noting the common misconception people have that “they stop drinking an hour or two and can hop in the car and drive." But in reality, "you can't do that as you're still drunk five, six hours down,” he explains.

Dr. Hoeflinger concludes his video by saying:

"For this holiday season the whole point is I really want to tell people that's how alcohol can stack up in your system easily when you're drunk and you won't know it and it won't wear off for hours and hours down the road." This is followed by an urge for people to take an Uber or Lyft home to avoid potentially taking their own or another’s life.

The informative clip, which has been viewed over 13 million times, received a flood of praise from viewers online, especially from parents with kids of a drinking age.

“This is the first time I have ever had anyone explain this in this way. I am forwarding this to my son,” wrote one parent.

It also resonated among designated drivers. One person commented “thank you for caring and educating. I’m the sober ride. I've seen the devastation from drinking and driving.”

The topic hits Dr. Hoeflinger on a personal level as well. In a previous video, he shared that he lost his 18-year old son, who died nearly a decade ago from drunk driving. Coming from a medical professional, the plea to not drink and drive is important to hear. But as a parent, it hits different. As he shared in the clip, “losing somebody you love is one of the worst experiences you can have in your life.”

Though Hoeflinger focused on the effect of liquor in his party example, the principle applies to wine and beer as well. Healthline recommends only having one large glass of wine every three hours, and one pint of beer every two hours.

It also gives some best practices to avoid intoxication, including:

  • Eat at least 1 hour before drinking.
  • Sip your drinks slowly.
  • Avoid shots, which you’re likely to down rather than sip.
  • Don’t drink more than one standard drink per hour.
  • Alternate between alcohol and nonalcoholic drinks, preferably water.
  • Limit or avoid carbonated drinks, like champagne, sparkling wine, and cocktails mixed with soda.
  • Sit down when drinking, since doing it while standing tends to make people drink faster.

And of course, don’t be afraid to get another ride home. For New Year’s Eve (and beyond), feel free to kick back and have fun. But let’s look out for one another by doing it safely.


This article originally appeared on 12.31.22