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Scientists Finally Unlock the Recipe For Magic Mushrooms (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Aside from being a schedule 1 drug, scientists haven't fully understood the chemistry behind how mushrooms produce the chemical psilocybin -- until now. A new study may finally lay the groundwork for a medical-grade psilocybin patients can take. Gizmodo reports: "Living things make molecules through a series of chemical reactions, similar to how car makers produce cars on assembly lines. Enzymes act as the workers/robots, speeding up the reactions by helping put the pieces together. Actually making psilocybin requires mapping the biological factory. A 1968 paper (obviously it was in 1968) offered a proposed order of events leading to a finished psilocybin molecule, by adding radioactive elements and watching what happened to them on the assembly line. The researchers thought that maybe tryptophan, the amino acid everyone wrongly says makes you sleepy, was the first piece, which then went through four successive steps to become the finished product. The new study shows that the 1968 paper got the order wrong, and introduces the responsible genes and enzymes, the workers that do the specific task to get the final product. This time around, mapping the factory required sequencing the genomes of two magic mushroom species, Psilocybe cubensis and Psilocybe cyanescens. Then, the researchers found exactly which genes produce the required enzymes and spliced them into E. coli bacteria. Using those enzymes, they were able to rebuild the factory and create their own psilocybin." The study has been published in the German journal Angewandte Chemie.
A 1968 paper (obviously it was in 1968)
Sorry, but why is this obvious? Just redundant text or is there another reason?
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
If they release this E. coli variant into the wild, will people start getting high when they catch it?
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
Personally, I'm excited to see what this brings for treatment of depression and social anxiety. And maybe in twenty years, we'll come around and be willing to explore micro-dosing for medical purposes. (There is anecdotal evidence that it reduces emotional PMS to zero for a lot of women, and I'm curious what it does for those with reduced attention spans.)
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
What the fuck is wrong with you people!? Splice it into brewer's yeast, not the fucking plague.
Plus, these is that psylocybin is considered to be among the safest recreational drugs.
https://www.theguardian.com/so...
https://www.globaldrugsurvey.c...
Disclaimer: I'm aware that the globaldrugsurvey's methodology and conclusions has major, almost stupid problems, but their raw data does suggest that that the mushrooms are fairly safe.
Reality sucks, so why not augment it?
+1000000 Internets!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Producing it via this method is not at all required to start using it therapeutically. The only reason they are going to such great lengths is so they can patent it and have monopoly "rights".
More proof that our perverse "intellectual property" system is precisely what is making the perverse outcomes.
Generally speaking, psychedelics aren't the best choice for hiding from reality. You are likely to end up with a heavy dosage of reality, possibly more than you feel you can handle. Now, alcohol and opiates, those will let you hide from reality.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Psilocybin is a small achiral molecule which is easy to prepare synthetically. (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/np030059u). If we wanted to use it medicinally, the availability of the molecule would not be the limiting factor.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Next on scientists' list: the ingredients to the eleven secret herbs and spices!
Lets make magic mushrooms illegal so we could sell medicine
As far as complexity of drug-like molecules is concerned, Psilocybin is really a trivial molecule where large-scale manufacturing in mushrooms or GM-yeast/bacteria would be waste of money. The paper identifies the reaction sequence and the involved enzymes, which is certainly interesting, but as absolutely ZERO applicability to any type of medical-grade commercial production.
Guys, I think I perfected the pathway to create psilocybin via...aww man, my microscope melted again.
. . . in a sensory deprivation tank!
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
but unless you're mentally prepared for a full trip you'd better to just stick to say 1/2 gram of shrooms and have similar to weed high but less body/head stone and more of a semi mild perception high.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Tryptophan isn't "wrongly" said to make you sleepy - it does make you sleepy. The myth is that it's tryptophan to blame when Americans get sleepy after a Thanksgiving feast, when in reality most of the blame lies on the mass consumption of carbohydrates. Turkey is no more tryptophan-rich than many other meats, such as chicken.
Ever since, I've been suspicious of Jesus and very careful around chlorine.
Or is he inside, looking out?
Who knows what listening to 'ein kleine nachtmusik' too many times whilst on psychedelics might do...
At least we'll then know what drugs it takes to find ads enjoyable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It has been nearly 20 years but shrooms turned me into the best possible movie audience member. I totally got whatever a director intended emotionally. Don'the ask me to put a caveat on it - shrooms were universally awesome for me. I absolutely understand why they would have therapeutic value.
... if those modified E. Coli bacteria were ever released and came to populate the guts of certain mammals.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It's more like giving your 'mental chalkboard' a thorough cleaning.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Where do I send the money?
"Actually making psilocybin requires mapping the biological factory."
Why do people write about a topic where they know so little, that statements like this don't immediately jump out at them as bullshit?
4-HO-DMT is just one of a varied family of tryptamines that is trivial to synthesise, as many Chinese 'research chemical' suppliers know full well.
And if you -really- want to phosphorylate psilocin into psilocybin, it's not that hard either, though nobody bothers because it'll be immediately oxidised back into psilocin in the body.
Have not done either for decades, but pretty sure my preference would still stand today.
Not sure what kind of value we can get from this kind of hallucinogen. We have known about magic mushrooms since prehistoric times, and there was major experimentation with them in the 60s, but nothing good came of it, and aside from synesthesia and what amounts to waking dreams that you can't get out of, these things aren't useful to humanity in any real way.
Probably one of the reasons that it took from 1968 to 2017 for someone to figure out how to synthesize the drug.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Drugs we don't make and sell for 1000x profit are bad mmmkay? Mushrooms are evil. Now that we've figured out how to make them in our lab they are good though, and you should buy them from us. Only us.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Why not just eat the mushrooms?
It's probably much cheaper to grow them rather than go thru a tedious synthesis.
And, isn't E.Coli bad for humans?
I am thinking this is a step toward engineering a (tool) to control humans.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
where i'm from thats called "being stuck in a trip" as in ... you dont snap out of it after tripping too hard ... its probably very scientific but it sounds somewhat weird to me that suddenly synthesized psylocibin would be acceptable whereas chewing on shrooms is illegal since even if, i don't think they get to predict how it affects people.
thats why its "a trip" ... i havent had shrooms in probably over 20 years, i havent had anything but good old legal alcohol (which aint dreughs in years and years and years) but ...
like the dude somewhere below : if it's okay then why not just eat the shrooms ?
answer : $$$ , what else ... if its not regulated its not money, strange it takes so long to get weed out of the crimezone, considering all the tax that can be levied on it ?
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?