How the first d**g came into existence

A caterpillar lands on a tobacco leaf, starts eating, and within minutes its muscles lock up. The plant has poisoned it. That poison is nicotine — and the tobacco plant didn't make it for you. Caffeine is a pesticide. Morphine is a pesticide. Cocaine is a pesticide. Almost every substance humans have ever built a habit around began as a chemical weapon aimed at something the size of your fingernail. So why does it work on us? This video follows that question from a 400-million-year-old arms race between plants and insects, through a mutation in one of our primate ancestors, to a hill in Turkey where people may have brewed beer before they invented farming — and ends with the machine in the corner of your office. A note on what's contested: the Raqefet brewing residue and the Göbekli Tepe feasting hypothesis are both argued over by specialists, and I say so in the video rather than presenting either as settled. The drunken monkey hypothesis is well supported but remains a hypothesis. Where the evidence runs out, the video says so. This video is about the biology and history of plant alkaloids. It is not advice of any kind. Written, illustrated and narrated by me. Every image is made for the video.