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Real-World Synthehol In Development
Ada_Rules writes "Researchers at the Imperial College London have announced development of an alcohol substitute that has many of the same properties as the Synthehol from the series Star Trek, in that one will get a buzz from it but will not end up with a hangover. In addition you will have the option of getting immediately sober if you so desire it. Let's hope this is not the typical vaporware. It is not that I really want a drink of Synthehol, but with its release I assume Romulan Ale won't be far behind."
you will have the option of getting immediately sober if you so desire it
Can I get drunk again later that night?
I was always under the impression that taking paracetamol and other similar drugs along with alcohol was rather unhealthy to the liver and whatnot...
Drinking lots of water is always good though!
ìì!
Mixing acetaminophen with alcohol is terrible advice.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Having the option of getting immediately sober is rather missing the point of drinking alcohol ... it is the assured descent into a carefree state with no possibility of reversal that is one of the last few pleasures left in life. ... the perfect end to a usually cold, wet and crappy day in the so-called western-civilisation.
Throwing the car keys onto the dining table, pulling a bottle of vodka from the freezer and taking a few shots
You are correct. Paracetamol which is better known as Tylenol, metabolises into N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine which is what actually damages the Liver.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
So if some drunk is being obnoxious at the bar you can now slip the antidote in his drink?
Prof Nutt and his team are concentrating their efforts on benzodiazepines, of which diazepam, the chief ingredient of Valium is one. Thousands of candidate benzos are already known to science. He said it is just a matter of identifying the closest match.
From my benzo experience, I doubt any benzo will replace alcohol. Alcohol effects a whole range of neurotransmitters, not just GABA.
And this is the "we can just turn it off" part:
“I’ve been in experiments where I’ve taken benzos,” said Professor Nutt. “One minute I was sedated and nearly asleep, five minutes later I was giving a lecture.
Since good old valium, benzos have been getting shorter and shorter acting with faster and faster clearances, but you can get such short actions that to get any sort off effect you have to shovel the stuff in IV just to keep up with the clearance. I don't know of any oral approach than can be turned off like a switch.
And doesn't someone already have an "off-switch" type pill for good old ethanol. It doesn't turn off the liver processing or clear the acetylaldehyde souring your stomach, but it would clear your head enough to drive.
Ethanol does not metabolize into methanol.
Further Smirnoff is perfectly fine Vodka.
Anybody who spends more then about $US12 on a 750 of Vodka is just a moron who watches too much TV and believes what he sees on commercials.
Save your money for booze where quality is harder to achieve. Vodka is just pure Ethanol and water.
Some of the most toxic components of booze are leached out of the char in the barrels. If you must get drunk do it on clear booze for lesser hangovers.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Let's read between the lines here...
From TFA:
In this one sentence we see: (a), an appeal to the neo-prohibitionist/nanny-stater lobby to spin this story into a positive, and (b), because you can't make this stuff at home, a pharmaceutical company is going to get a cut. Alcohol's easy to make - take some yeast and just about any form of sugar (or starch that can be converted via enzymatic action into sugar) - and you've got yourself the foundations of beer, wine, and distilled spirits. Synthetic valium, not so much.
Net effect here is that we all wind up hooked on benzos as depressants, rather than alcohol. Hey, that's fine if valium's his depressant of choice, but it's not one of mine. What's next, a move to replace the caffeine in coffee (my stimulant of choice :) with slightly-modified speed?
From the TFsummary:
As cool as it sounds, that's not a feature, that's a bug.
Allow me to nerd out for a bit: When Synthehol was invented, Romulan Ale (which presumably contained real alcohol) became illegal.
And if you go back and re-read TFA, you'll see that's pretty much where this is goin. This guy's not interested in an alternative to alcohol, he's looking for a substitute for alcohol. Even if he is working in good faith, his efforts will be used to help the neo-prohibitionists. And I can't get down with that. Because I like real ale, Romulan or not. (Homebrewing is like turning half the basement into a mad scientist's chemistry lab for a day, and it's all the more fun because you get to consume the product of your experiment when it's done!)
Around this time of year, I usually say "A drink? No thanks, I'm driving." But on this one, I'm gonna have to say "Benzos? No thanks, I'm drinking."
Uh, no. Put down the drink, it seems to have damaged your brain.
The primary cause of most hangover symptoms is very simple: Dehydration. The rest are caused by the presence of metabolic by-products of alcohol, which cause, among other things, a decline in available glucose for use by the brain, inhibition of liver function, and vitamin B12 deficiency.
For more information, wikipedia is your friend.
Never underestimate the value of a tall glass of Dihydrogen Monoxide. What bugs me though is the original stories implication the Romulan Ale dose not yet exist.
On the contrary, I was able to buy Romulan Ale AND Klingon Blood wine at the Star Trek Museum.
Of course this facility also hosts a Bar called "Quark's at which you are encouraged to drink a "Warp core breach", so some of these beverages may not be exactly as advertised.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
The second is already done. It's given to addicts to ease them off the real stuff.
"Prof Nutt and his team are concentrating their efforts on benzodiazepines, of which diazepam, the chief ingredient of Valium is one."
In other words, let's invent another Happy Pill that will make big profit for Big Pharmco. And we'll call it an "alcohol substitute" because alcohol is well-known as the active ingredient in alcoholism, and you're in favor of a cure for alcoholism, right?
Good thing they're not calling it a "Valium analog", what with Valium's well-known and deserved reputation for causing addiction, tolerance, and withdrawal.
-kgj
If it is ingested orally, then it will be metabolized in the liver. What about its toxicity? If it's the same or higher than alcohol, then the illusion of safety may in the end be detrimental to the health of the user.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
Or the Catholics. If you're going to have fun, the punishment must be built-in.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
You know the first thing I'm gonna fucking do, is mix this shit in my rum and cokes while chewing some nicotine gum and smoking a fat joint.
And I know I'm not the only one.
Liberty.
To avoid a hangover with the real stuff, just stay hydrated. Not difficult.
It seems that the head researcher on this project is David Nutt, who was sacked by the British government over his "controversial" views on drugs like THC and ecstasy. What a bunch of blowhards; but then I'm not one to talk, since the teabaggers here hold the same rigid views.
The guy is awesome. Having been sacked in a purely political manoeuvre by Jacqui Smith (spit) it sounds like he now leads an Alexander Shulgin-like life of synthesising new chemicals and trying them out faster than the government can ban or control them. Sadly the same reasons for him being sacked will probably mean that this project doesn't gain any traction. Politics trump science and reason...
Actually, other major components of your hangover include:
For most of these it doesn't matter what quality vodka you drink.
Liberty.
Heroin was actually an early attempt at "synthmorphine". Didn't work as intended though.
What junk are you drinking? Smirnoff?
It isn't the alcohol which gives you a headache. It's the alcohol in combination with the rest of the crap in the beverage.
Either buy decent quality and/or drink a glass of water for each drink and take two paracetamol before you go to bed.
There seems to be reason to believe that the hangover is caued by acetaldehyde. Though, I have noticed that some drinks are worse than others. For example, I think red wine has very small amounts of alcohols other than ethanol, alcohols which are a bit more toxic. It's probably also why I seem to get much more subjectively drunk from red wine than an equivalent amount of most liquors. Beer has a similar effect with me, and I assume that's because of the hops. Hops alone are sedating, and in fact hops tea (non-fermented, non-alcoholic) can be used as a natural sleep aid or a way to relax.
From that Wiki article:
Most people of East Asian descent have a mutation in their alcohol dehydrogenase gene that makes this enzyme unusually effective at converting ethanol to acetaldehyde, and about half of such people also have a form of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase that is less effective at converting acetaldehyde to acetic acid.[16] This combination causes them to suffer from alcohol flush reaction, in which acetaldehyde accumulates after drinking, leading to immediate and severe hangover symptoms. These people are therefore less likely to become alcoholics.[17][18]
The drug disulfiram (Antabuse) prevents the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid, and it has the same unpleasant effect on drinkers. Antabuse is used as a deterrent for alcoholics who wish to stay sober.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
"Warp core breach" - A 50/50 shot of vodka and castor oil.
Served at an event with 1,500+ people and about 10 porta potties.
Clearly Wikipedia is the font of all knowledge (that was sarcasm (for the Americans)). You haven't had your brain replaced by a parrot brain have you?
Huh, clearly you're not illiterate, yet you apparently didn't even read the article I posted, which explicitly mentioned cogeners as exacerbating hangover symptoms.
Meanwhile, nowhere in the article you linked to do I see text which suggests that "It isn't the alcohol which gives you a headache"... probably because that's completely false.
We already have alcohol substitutes ( read: recreational drugs ) that are safer than alcohol. Only problem is, they're illegal.
You can't handle the truth. Dr. David Nutt, the British government scientist that was recently fired, did an exhaustive study of the real impact of recreational drugs. Herion was 8.32, alcohol 5.54, Cannabis 4.00, LSD 3.68 and Ecstacy 3.27. A higher score is worse.( Many other drugs were in the study).
So we already have several safer alternatives to alcohol.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
and yet the article in wikipedia clearly says...
"Hypoglycemia, dehydration, acetaldehyde intoxication, and vitamin B12 deficiency are all theorized causes of hangover symptoms".
so how can you authoritatively assert what causes a hangover when the scientists, at least according to that article, aren't even sure?
Paracetamol which is better known as Tylenol
Paracetamol is not better known as Tylenol, only a tiny proportion of the world population know paracetamol as Tylenol.
And the GP is not correct.
along with alcohol was rather unhealthy to the liver
Paracetamol is metabolized whether there is alcohol involved or not; Paracetamol is unhealthy for the liver regardless.
Deleted
So I suppose, then, that you have a citation or two that demonstrates that alcohol plays on role, whatsoever, in the development of a hangover? I know I've never come across such a thing, which seems to suggest such a theory is *highly* unlikely, but hey, I could certainly be wrong.
All American vodkas are equivalently tasteless due to stringent industry regulations on filtering for products bearing the label of vodka. American vodkas are, in fact, pretty much pure ethanol and water.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Your thinking this is a US centric site does not make it a US centric site. This is the Internet - people from everywhere read (and submit) articles from everywhere
I still don't get why you Americans insist on naming things after the most popular brand name when they already have proper names either, to the rest of the world it's like calling all card Fords or all computers IBMs.
You are correct. This however does make slashdot US centric.
From the slashdot FAQ: Slashdot is U.S.-centric.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
As someone who's drank practically every type of ethanol under the sun, from Busch beer to Johnny Walker Blue to fortified "wine" to home-brewed mead to gluten-free beer to Cristal to Everclear, in every combination imaginable, getting blackout drunk on nothing but neat Jim Beams all night or Guinness or a different drink every time, who's tried every hangover cure, multivitamins, aspirin, Vicodin, hair of the dog, bacon and eggs, a gallon of water before bed, drinking a large glass of water between every alcoholic beverage, you name it, I can say with the utmost confidence that the "impurities" have fuck-all effect on your hangover.
Try evaporating all the alcohol out of the worst possible plastic-bottle booze, and drink the remains all the way down. You won't feel a thing. Now go raise your BAC to 0.25% with 100% pure lab-grade ethanol, drink a bottle of water between every serving, take a four Tylenol before bed, and tell me how you feel in the morning.
You get hung over because you drank poison. The perfect hangover cure is morphine. Thread over.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
The FAQ seems to disagree with you.
Because Paracetamol isn't just paracetamol; it's also called acetaminophen and on occasion Panadol. Technically the proper chemical name for it is N-acetyl-p-aminophenol so why not use any of those names instead? The reason being that most people in the US know what Tylenol is. The rest of the English speaking world could call it whatever it wants but the majority of Slashdot's readership consists of Americans.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
And bbviously, you're not a good reader. The dude authoritatively said that dehydration is the primary cause of a hangover, based on a wiki link that he cited. However, the wiki link doesn't say that and is in fact inconclusive about what the primary cause of hangover is, let alone what causes a hangover.
besides that, the original poster's point may actually be correct too. There are other things in different types of alcohol that cause hangovers to be worse/better than others, which the dude citing wikipedia is trying to discredit. however, the wikipedia article even specifically mentions white wine causing less of a hang over than red wine because of content other than alcohol (and subsequently ethanol dehydration).
finally, that dude citing wikipedia decided to go off and be a pompous fucking ass by saying the original poster had brain damage. so i felt the need to put him in his place instead of misrepresenting what the wikipedia article said, which he originally cited, not me.
Actually, methadone is not a synth-anything, its a damn potent mu-opiod agonist in its own right, the difference is it doesn't cross the blood-brain-barrier in one big rush like dimethylmorphine(heroin) does. The reason heroin is "special" is that unlike morphine, methadone, etc., it manages to find a carrier protein that will preferentially transfer it across the BBB. Dimethylmorphine itself isn't terribly active, but once it crosses the barrier, the methyl groups are rapidly cleaved off, leaving, you guessed it, a ton of morphine. The only other way to get this particular effect would be via trepannation (i.e. cutting a hole in your skull and injeting it into the brain). This is why there's nothing else out there quite like it. For the record, I have never tried it (though I have tried methadone, didn't find it all *that* compelling) and never will. Heroin is a drug you do when you are 100% finished with life, on your deathbed, because if you do it before that, you'll quickly find yourself on said deathbed. It is one of the few drug scares where the government propaganda isn't all *that* far off from the truth. Mind you, there are people who manage to quit, or even moderate their use, but these people are few and far between. It simply is not worth the risk, I am sure the high is indescribably amazing, but its just not worth it. I'll stick to ecstasy and raving, thanks.
I feel like punching people when they call their SUV's Jeeps.
mediocrity rules, man
No, no you won't.
If it's Scotch you drink, it's called Whisky. If it's whiskey you drink, it's no' Scotch!
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
The definition of vodka is water + alcohol. Anything more makes it less of a vodka. The only thing sillier than a wine snob is a vodka snob.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
"Less talk, more synthehol!"
This ain't rocket surgery.
You get hung over because you drank poison. The perfect hangover cure is morphine. Thread over.
Try this, and then tell me morphine is the only cure for a hangover. Seriously, drinking that stuff before you start drinking leaves you without any hangover at all the next day.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Actually you wouldn't want to drink a bottle of lab ethanol--it's probably denatured, i.e. made unfit to drink by addition of nasty stuff like methanol. This is because most places exempt denatured alcohol from the extra taxes on drinkable alcohol.
I always buy my Dihydrogen Monoxide dehydrated. Just add one quart of water to one quart of Dihydrogen Monoxide and stir until mixed.
Ahhhh, refreshing!
But its also a concern that if synthehol was produced, how would we know if it was safe of not, it would take usage by milliions over they adult lifetime, before we genuinely know weather the chemical was safe.
But good luck to Prof, Knut, who will probably have some very wild parties testing outs his candiate benzodiazepines.
---
Drug Addiction Feed @ Feed Distiller
Yes.
Alcohol is unhealthy for the liver.
Paracetamol is unhealthy for the liver.
Alcohol + Paracetamol is rather unhealthy for the liver.
I was always under the impression that taking paracetamol and other similar drugs along with alcohol was rather unhealthy to the liver and whatnot...
If you're at a level where you're hung over, Paracetamol will damage your liver.[1] However, the liver regenerate quickly, so if you only do this occasionally and have nothing that blocks liver regeneration generally, this should be relatively safe. My wife is an MD; her toxicology teacher recommended use of Paracetamol against hangover rather than Ibuprofen or other NSAIDs, as the increased risk of stomach damage from the alcohol/NSAID combination was more of a problem than the liver damage.
Eivind.
[1] Alcohol is converted to acetaldehyde as a part of the breakdown process; cystein is consumed by the process that handle acetaldehyde safely (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysteine) and the poisonous effects of breakdown products of acetaldehyde when you lack cystein seems to be a large part of being "properly hung over". Paracetamol poisoning comes from lack of glutathione in the handling of paracetamol breakdown products; glutathione is made from cystein in the body, so having a hangover (lacking cystein) implies that paracetamol will rapidly deplete glutathione and the breakdown will be poisonous.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
I'm surprised that cannabis did only marginally better than alcohol and that the gap between heroin and alcohol was so large.
I've never known anyone to fight or commit vandalism after smoking pot and while I'd agree its inadvisable, I think stoned drivers are less risky than drunk ones, especially at the low end of drunkenness/stonedness. Pot also is much easier on your body and does not produce a physical dependence or illness to the same magnitude that alcohol does (even if you factor in high cholesterol from snacking).
Heroin addiction I can see being destructive, but much of that seems to be a result of legal sanction, not the inherent danger of the drug (interaction with criminal enterprise, impure/uncertain quality, high prices leading to theft, etc). True it is addictive and many addicts chase the "rush" of injection (as opposed to the high itself) which ends up resulting in overdoses, the opiates are not corrosive to the body and in fact are tolerated very well for long periods of time.
I suspect these "scores" factor in maleable social and legal circumstances as constant factors and do not weight the actual pharmacological properties enough.