My name is Adam Rogers. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired and I'm the author of a book called

Proof the Science of Boos. This is about a level of enjoyment and a high level of interest,

but it's not about addiction, which is a huge problem with alcohol, and it's really,

it's not about consumption to excess, except in one specific case, which was this chapter

and hangover because of two things. First, I knew that it was everybody's question. Whenever

I told anybody I was writing a book about the science of booze, they would say, what

about hangovers? And also it was a honey trap because I knew it was popular and I knew it

was going to be the thing that people would want to talk to me about. So it is succeeded.

Yet again, the jaws of my trap have snapped shut around your excellent podcast.

We were lured in by Adam's hangover honey trap and so we're doing the same to you. Welcome

to the hangover honey trap episode of Gastropod. I'm Nicola Twilly and I never thought I'd

say that sentence. And I'm Cynthia Graver. And of course Gastropod is the podcast that looks

at food through the lens of science and history. And so while hangovers aren't food per se,

they are the result of a food or, you know, a beverage. But what are they? What is the medical

basis of this unfortunate condition? And more importantly, can science do anything about it?

I'm picturing labs full of scientists working on the hangover, trying to come up with a cure,

the way they do for cancer. Could the cure be hidden in one of the many traditional hangover

recovery recipes you listeners sent us? But also we're using hangovers as a honey trap themselves

to lure you in so we can talk about what was until recently the most overlooked of all the organs,

the liver. You say overlooked, Cynthia, but the liver used to be more important than the heart.

It was so powerful that if you asked it the right question, it could predict the future.

Forget tarot. What you need to know what's going to happen next is a juicy slab of organ meat.

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