Alcohol, the oldest vice

Like a drink now and then? Don't worry, according to New Scientist it's natural:

From the earliest times, people the world over have felt the urge to drink alcohol and applied themselves to finding ways to produce prodigious amounts of it.

By Neolithic times, the inhabitants of different continents had all come up with the same answer: the domestication of cereals. The first farmers, argues McGovern, cultivated cereals for fermentation rather than for food. Beer, it seems, came before bread.

Rather than the root of all evil, alcohol is the root of all that makes us human: art, music, religion and other aspects of our culture all got their start in palaeolithic binge-drinking. That's the theory, and McGovern has found plenty of evidence to support it.

Speaking of which, it's time for a beer.