What happens when humans try just about everything?

The news last week had some stories that were both alarming and amusing.

One had to do with scientists somewhere who had dabbled an enzyme on ant larvae, after which they — the larvae, not the scientists — grew into super ants with huge heads.

Another dealt with scientists who combined monkey embryos to produce a monkey that had — well, I can't quite tell what exactly the point was.

One of these days we're going to make something that we end up being very sorry that we made. I'm scarcely the first to arrive at this conclusion, nor do I suppose that it informs any useful idea of what we should or should not do. Instead, I think it helps illustrate perhaps the most wonderful aspect of the human condition: we simply will not leave well enough alone.

Think for a moment about coffee. When you read stories of the days of old, of biblical times or medieval times, you're probably impressed or horrified, whatever the proper reaction is to the tale being told. Not me. My first thought is, "And imagine, they did it without benefit of coffee."

It's not as if they would have known to do with coffee if they had had any. Coffee hangs from the tree (or bush or whatever it is — it doesn't matter) in the form of "coffee cherries." Similarly, cherries hang on the tree in the form of "cherries." With the former, we save the seeds and throw away the rest. With the latter, we eat the rest and throw away the seeds.

This cannot have been obvious. Picking the coffee cherry, extracting the seeds, roasting the seeds, grinding up the seeds, passing hot water over them, and drinking the runoff -- none of this is obvious. Nor did it solve any problem people might have imagined they had.

So why did we do it? More interesting, perhaps: What else did we do on the path from discovering the coffee cherry to arriving at the tasty, wholesome beverage without which life has no real meaning? Surely we tried eating the flesh of the coffee cherry. I have no idea how that would have worked out; I've never tasted the things, but they must not be all that impressive if they were cast aside in favor of the seed. (And has anyone roasted and ground the seeds of cherry cherries to see what kind of drink they might produce? Surely someone has.)

Even more puzzling is chocolate. You have to do a lot of things to the seed of the Theobroma cacao tree before it becomes something you'd like to consume. The path from the starting point to what we enjoy today surely had some hilarious wrong turns.

It very likely had some tragic ones, too. One of my favorite topics of speculation is how we found out which mushrooms are poisonous and which ones aren't. As I understand it — I have not sampled them myself — poisonous mushrooms do not taste especially bad. Nor do they make someone consuming them instantly sick. It takes awhile for the toxin to do its deadly work. Imagine how many people died before we sorted out which ones are good and which ones aren't. If ever I become obscenely wealthy, I shall patronize statues to the countless prehistoric researchers who gave their lives to mushroom identification. If you see a statue of "Og," you'll know I hit the lottery.

Everywhere you look you see how we benefit from those who suffered enroute to useful discoveries. There are hundreds of edible cheeses, but surely there are millions of things that you can do with milk that render it inedible. After we're done questioning the sanity of the first person who said, "here's some rotten, moldy milk — let's eat it," we must appreciate those who sorted the good from the bad. (Though there is still debate about the success of that endeavor — there are some highly regarded cheeses that I would not allow on my compost pile.)

Sometimes I think the single most significant phrase ever uttered by humankind is, "I wonder what would happen if…" -- even though it was probably frequently said by persons who did not live to complete the sentence.

Yes, the stakes are high. But they always have been. The indigenous person who brought home the big mess of toadstools probably wiped out the entire village. And surely a lot of truly awful substances got consumed before the idea of letting milk rot bore its metaphorical fruit. The British have a phrase, "chalk and cheese," to describe dissimilar items. Well, you can bet that those with a lick of sense were gnawing away at the former in preference to the latter, early on.

Still, we may end up too clever for our own good. Some things we try can't be un-tried. Look around your windows for the tiny crunchy shells of Asian ladybugs if you don't believe me. (What do you bet someone at some time has tried them out as food?)

No, we don't leave well enough alone. Which is why oneday we'll be ruled by genetically combined monkeys with huge insect mouthparts.

Oh, wait. We already are.

Editor's note: Dennis E. Powell was an award-winning reporter in New York and elsewhere before moving to Ohio and becoming a full-time crackpot. His column appears on Mondays. You can reach him at dep@drippingwithirony.com.