Widdershins
@Widdershins@lemmy.world
- Comment on How Psychedelic Mushrooms Evolved Their Magic 22 hours ago:
Disable Javascript in browser site settings for ny times. I think this is the whole article. It’s everything that loaded.
How Psychedelic Mushrooms Evolved Their Magic
Two distantly related groups of mushrooms take radically different routes to producing psilocybin, a mind-bending molecule.
Researchers were surprised to see how profoundly the two mushroom’s paths to making psilocybin diverged. Credit…Alana Paterson for The New York Times
No one knows why magic mushrooms evolved to produce psilocybin, a powerful psychedelic molecule. But this trait was apparently so beneficial for fungi that it independently evolved in two distantly related types of mushrooms.
An even greater surprise to biologists was that rather than arriving at the same solution for producing psilocybin, the two groups pursued completely different biochemical pathways, according to a study published last month in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
“This finding reminds us that nature finds more than one way to make important molecules,” said Dirk Hoffmeister, a pharmaceutical microbiologist at Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany and an author of the study. He added that it was also evidence that mushrooms were “brilliant chemists.”
Practically speaking, Dr. Hoffmeister said, the research also suggested a possible new path for synthesizing psilocybin for use in scientific research and therapies. “We can expand our toolbox,” he said.
Psilocybe and Inocybe mushrooms occur in some of the same habitats, but they follow different lifestyles. Psilocybe, the group that includes what are traditionally called magic mushrooms, thrives on decaying material such as decomposing organic matter or cow dung. Inocybe, commonly known as fiber caps, are symbiotic organisms that form intimate, mutually beneficial relationships with trees.
In 1958, Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD, became the first researcher to isolate psilocybin from Psilocybe mushrooms. Some scientists later suspected that a few Inocybe mushrooms also produced the compound. Since then, psilocybin has been identified in around half a dozen Inocybe species. (The other species tend to produce a potent neurotoxin.)
Some researchers hypothesized, however, that the enzymatic formula magic mushrooms use to make psilocybin might not be the only way nature has found to create the molecule. The new study offers biochemical evidence supporting that hunch.
Dr. Hoffmeister and his colleagues produced and analyzed the enzymes responsible for psilocybin biosynthesis in both magic mushrooms and fiber caps. They used computer models to predict the molecular structures of new enzymes they found along the way.
When the researchers compared the two routes the fungi took to make psilocybin, they were surprised to see just how profoundly they diverged. “We definitely hadn’t expected that the two pathways would be so radically different,” Dr. Hoffmeister said.
Psilocybe and Inocybe both use the same amino acid starting point to produce psilocybin. But from there, the mushrooms follow separate road maps of genes and enzymes. Midway through, they meet at an intermediate molecular point before parting ways once again — only to converge on a shared end product.
“It’s like meandering through New York City and taking different roads to get to the same destination,” Dr. Hoffmeister said. “You can go this way or that way, but at a certain point, you meet at Central Park.”
Jon Thorson, a chemist at the University of Kentucky who was not involved in the work, pointed out that psilocybin was already “a fairly simple molecule” to make.
But he added that the new study “expands our molecular level of understanding” of the biosynthetic steps involved in the process. He agreed that this could pave the way for new methods of producing psilocybin in more “user-friendly formats.”
The findings did not bring evolutionary biologists much closer to explaining why some mushrooms evolved to produce psilocybin, said Jason Slot, a mycologist at Ohio State University who was not involved in the research. But he said the findings did add evidence for the belief that psilocybin was not an evolutionary accident, but rather a “solution to a particular challenge faced by mushroom-forming fungi” that helped them thrive.
- Comment on Republican? Democrat? There is a third option: 6 days ago:
Original isn’t up but an MSPaint of paramedic clothes and CPR has been added to make it less obscene.
- Comment on When you say you don't like linux on Lemmy 1 week ago:
- Comment on Salmon 2 weeks ago:
SaLmon in the fish tacos, Hank!
- Comment on Are Street Racers "bad people"? 2 weeks ago:
Street racing i have no opinion about but street crashing i am against
- Comment on What's the most offensive word I can use that isn't a slur? 2 weeks ago:
Niggard/niggardly sounds like a really, really, awful choice for a word to describe someone cheap like Scrooge. It’s not a slur it just sounds way too much like one. The use of the word is controversial despite the only connection the two words share is how they sound.
I wouldn’t use the word around people though. Explaining how a word that sounds racist isn’t racist makes you appear to be more racist. It isn’t a slur but gets treated as if it was one.
✓ quite offensive ✓ not a slur X you probably still shouldn’t use it
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Thanks for the memories 3 weeks ago:
I’ve been busy tribulating did I miss the rapture?
- Comment on how do school shooters know how to use guns? 4 weeks ago:
Kids know computers and just like guns it is a point and click interface
- Comment on Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape 5 weeks ago:
I like to think that the website is only accessible when someone is hitting the vape.
- Comment on When real life generates the shitpost 5 weeks ago:
[Insert name here] says Michael Richards is ‘actually a little better’ than Jerry Seinfeld
- Comment on My favorite board game! 1 month ago:
Was Connect Fork too much of a stretch?
- Comment on Which one are you? 3 months ago:
What would “return to corral and flip it over” fall under?
- Comment on How does one become a clown? 3 months ago:
I had a good friend who was a clown. I drove a car small enough to call a clown car so I drove for a lot of gigs after we met. He would “clown up” and go to public events(concerts, festivals, karaoke, any excuse really) and be silly and most importantly have fun. He networked and had a few yearly gigs. Some paid but he was in it for the clowning and the cash was just a bonus. Don’t quit your day job and all.
As a person he was great company. Friends with everyone and woke up every day looking to have a good time. One yearly gig we did was a three hours away neighborhood wide garage sale. It was one of the few that paid. After a day of making balloon animals he stood in a chalk circle and I handed kids water balloons and kept the tip jar mostly empty. We made well over $100 each those days.
His backstory is a little more fucked up than the average clown I would guess. His primary networking was AA meetings and back in the 80s he was an alcoholic crackhead living in Detroit sleeping in dumpsters. The dude knew how to hustle. He told me the story of how his daughter had to come up with some cash and the chalk circle and water balloons show(?) outside bars solved her money issues overnight.
He had no formal training so don’t get hung up on some expensive day camp. If you have it in you you can be a clown. Getting a degree from a clown college is just a vanity project. A real clown, at least to me, hung out with Joe C watching wrestling and smoking weed while Kid Rock and the rest of the gang partied after shows. Be larger than life and you can be whatever you want to be.
- Comment on Sable is free on Epic until tomorrow 3 months ago:
I have a problem with the character’s animation framerate. I want to like the game but can’t look past that.
- Comment on When you work for a company owned by a A..hole 3 months ago:
Take a picture? How are they going to smell or taste it? Either shit at work and don’t flush or shit on the floor at work if you want to flush.
- Comment on Me when I'm posting here 3 months ago:
- Comment on Bernie Sanders says that if AI makes us so productive, we should get a 4-day work week 3 months ago:
Imagine being rich as fuck because you’re working 6 days a week instead of still barely making ends meet.
- Comment on Ask the crickets 3 months ago:
I feel like parentheses don’t belong in explaining math if they aren’t used appropriately.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
I thought best buy was out of business.
- Comment on Why do some people hate drinking water? 3 months ago:
I appreciate your advice and will do that as soon as new job insurance kicks in but I am a sweat machine doing a physical job in increasing heat. Its a birth defect I was born with that had pediatricians warning my parents it could be a sign of cystic fibrosis. I am in OK condition currently and far past the CF terminal years. Back in gradeschool I would have salt on my cheeks after recess from dried sweat.
If I step out of my fan zone at work I’ll be sweating in under half a minute and beads will roll off my face two minutes later. I’ve been wearing my winter coat at work in the heat to remain comfortable while in the fans. I am not always standing in my fans.
I also started back on nicotine vapes. Everybody at work smokes cigarettes and I’d rather have firsthand smoke as opposed to secondhand smoke. When in Rome and all. It sucks and isn’t the wisest life choice but that’s the breaks.
Thanks again for your concern. If I didn’t have a litany of ways to lose weight going on I’d be more worried. I’m not doing anything I don’t have to do to lose it. I was over 200lbs from being a couch potato for a year. Now I’m only a potato 2 days a week and I bought a new chair.
- Comment on Why do some people hate drinking water? 3 months ago:
I drink as much water as I can handle at work so I can go take a leak and have my phone out and not risk getting in trouble with the boss. I don’t eat breakfast or lunch. Since starting work 3 months ago I lost 30lbs. I’ll eat anything for dinner and I haven’t been trying to lose any weight.
I will add that moving to first shift after over a decade of second shift has been hard on my system and I’ve vomited in the mornings before work more often than not. It’s like clockwork. I have learned that I’ve got a window of about 4 hours after work during which I can eat. Sticking to that keeps morning nausea at bay thanks to an empty stomach in the morning.
Anyways water is great. The other guy at work brings cases of bottled water which I try to understand. The water quality here is quite good and a majority of my water at work comes out of the tap. I have no complains and I wouldn’t spend a dime more than I am now for what I get in addition to microplastics.
- Comment on Driver stops in the middle of a cross ride, and starts using her phone. 3 months ago:
Not everyone has marine training
- Comment on *pat pat pat* 4 months ago:
At that size it gets difficult to imagine having one hung from your neck.
- Comment on As The Outer Worlds 2 hits $80, director says "we don't set the prices for our games" and wishes "everybody could play" Obsidian's new RPG 4 months ago:
The only thing that stands out thinking about the game is the dialog choices you get when you play through the game with really low intelligence. I think it gets the best ending.
- Comment on Bugs 4 months ago:
I’m from Buenos Aires, and I say kill’em all
- Comment on [deleted] 4 months ago:
Fuck $80 mario you can get Garfield Kart for $5
- Comment on [deleted] 4 months ago:
I once traded two 30 racks to Vince Neil for a garage show and all I had to show for it was a clogged toilet and cigarette burns on my couch.
- Comment on I guess they hate shoppers (context below) 4 months ago:
The shit has wheels and isn’t behind a fence. Move it yourself, tell them to fuck off, and go back the next day and move it again until the management give up. What are they going to do? Get a police stake out? Hire RoboCop to uphold the law? Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 months ago:
Steal from the rich: accept expensive gifts from the rich
Give to the poor: at the very least see if anyone needs his old phone. One of you may know somebody who has a cracked screen and is willing to up/side/downgrade to a phone in better condition.
