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Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

phys.org

121–130 of 214 posts

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with psychiatric disorders need spiritual journeys. Spiritual journeys heal and cleanse the mind, heal and cleanse the soul. Do not try to strip that away. The commodification of medicine troubles me--I prefer the perspective of sacred medicine. It goes roughly definitionally / tautologically: if something heals you, is it not sacred? And likewise, if something is sacred, it heals you. By definition. The idea…

Why can't science be spiritual?

Because HN is primarily the realm of scientism : science as a religion. Anything that deviates from that will be -4'ed within an hour. And it even appears that discussing such will also incur the wrath of non-comment -1 voters. Without requiring a justified reason of a downvote, I don't expect this to be fixed in any reasonable timeframe.

It's an emperor's new clothes problem.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#122

Consciousness studies will be the next frontier and may bring our race further, faster, than space exploration. In my opinion.

I've never once heard a bit of insight from a psychonaut that was particularly game-changing. We're all connected, consciousness is an illusion, societal structures are somewhat arbitrarily defined, etc. These are the existential thoughts of teenagers. Life is just energy, energy is just vibrations, everything is a fractal, etc, these are just the existential speculations of people making baseless claims. Consciousne…

I think this is more or less obviously wrong. Imagine a primitive society inventing the microscope and then making it illegal, perhaps going so far as to make all types of lenses illegal even those used for eyeglasses. Now you might have small numbers of people willing to experiment with lenses and microscopy in secret but if the society wages a war on glass and actively persecutes and imprisons anyone involved in the lens business it's going to make it very difficult for anyone to make any progress and those that do are going to be people on the fringe with little ability to pursue their research or communicate it to others.

It seems possible to me that psychedelics may be a form of "microscope for the mind" that makes clear details and inner workings that we were not able to see otherwise. It won't revolutionize our understanding over night since we would still need to build a science around it just as we did with the microscope when we discovered a world we had only inklings of before.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#123
I think a lot of this discussion is missing the forest for the trees. Here we have people arguing whether it’s better to make powder out of these psychoactive mushrooms and use that as a drug vs extract pure psilocybin and use that as a drug.

I know little of pharmacology but I can see one use of pure compounds: further research. Analyzing how psilocybin affects serotonin receptors could potentially help design other drugs that act on those receptors without psychedelic side effects. It could also help with creating other psilocybin analogs with different effects. And of course having the ability to study in detail the effects that other substances in the psychoactive mushrooms have might help identify other areas of study.

As a software analogy, this is like the debate whether it’s better to have Google Maps vs mapping software and all the underlying data. Of course it’s better to have the latter even if some romanticize the former.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#124
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are negative side effects from consuming the mushrooms which you don't get from purified psilocybin. You're still owing at least one example for this statement. What side effects do you get from shrooms that you don't get from pure psilocin or one of its prodrugs?

You'll find nausea and vomiting in just about every discussion about consuming psilocybin mushrooms.

I know this statement is false, because I've read thousands of discussions.

I challenge you to attempt to prove your assertion with evidence. If you make an attempt, you will quickly realize that you are objectively incorrect.

And then, in light of that realization, perhaps there may be value in reviewing and contemplating, at length, your earlier statement:

> Think about why these kinds of arguments are made on different topics which you disagree with and then rethink why you are making them here.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#125
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just dodging and fudging. Let me explain why reality matters. Those like you who have the blessing of decent mental health and do not understand - seem quite unwilling to understand in many cases - that those such as me who have to deal with this shit for all their lives can be deeply and negatively affected by you lot posting garbage. If it were a physical disease such as cancer you might be a lot less incli…

I'm sorry that I seem to have offended you with what I wrote, but I honestly don't understand why. St. John's wort can be better in terms of side effects than synthetic antidepressants, with similar antidepressant effects, for some people. That's all I'm saying and that's an evidence based statement. I started looking into St. John's wort more closely because I saw the positive experiences that people close to me had…

Your heart's in the right place but that's not enough.

Do this for me: suppose someone's taking prozac for depression. Given that St. John's Wort is also an antidepressant, how well would it work to have someone take both at the same time? How much will they complement each other?

Please answer that WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP, just based on common sense and logic. I'll explain why.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#126

I think a lot of this discussion is missing the forest for the trees. Here we have people arguing whether it’s better to make powder out of these psychoactive mushrooms and use that as a drug vs extract pure psilocybin and use that as a drug. I know little of pharmacology but I can see one use of pure compounds: further research. Analyzing how psilocybin affects serotonin receptors could potentially help design other…

> Of course it’s better to have the latter

All other things being equal.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#127

I think a lot of this discussion is missing the forest for the trees. Here we have people arguing whether it’s better to make powder out of these psychoactive mushrooms and use that as a drug vs extract pure psilocybin and use that as a drug. I know little of pharmacology but I can see one use of pure compounds: further research. Analyzing how psilocybin affects serotonin receptors could potentially help design other…

When "researching cannabis", using just pure thc may not be optimal because cbd, cbn, and other chemicals produce a different kind of high and, if I recall correctly, especially cbd counters some of the most negative effects of thc, etc.

Similarily, people might be worrying about oversimplifying mushrooms to just psilocybin because mushrooms have more than one chemical in them and they might work in a synergistic way as well.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#128
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the method uses some special enzymes that can only be really be used with yeast. So yeast is just a supporting role in the operation and the enzyme is the star. They say they tried to get E. Coli to operate the enzyme (E. Coli is used often to make all kinds of drugs, like insulin) but it didn't work and got yeast to work with it.

By my reading the yeast does the whole job, short of purification, meaning getting the yeast, sugar, and alcohol out of it afterward. Why even a 50% loss of product would be debilitating is a mystery. It's not like the yeast collects a salary, or like sugar is expensive. The author doesn't seem to realize how little of the stuff is needed for a dose.

Your sibling comment said a yield of 600mg/L, and that a 30mg dose has psychoactive effects. Seems like that works out to 20 doses/L, which is a better yield than beer!

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#129
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never once heard a bit of insight from a psychonaut that was particularly game-changing. We're all connected, consciousness is an illusion, societal structures are somewhat arbitrarily defined, etc. These are the existential thoughts of teenagers. Life is just energy, energy is just vibrations, everything is a fractal, etc, these are just the existential speculations of people making baseless claims. Consciousne…

I think this is more or less obviously wrong. Imagine a primitive society inventing the microscope and then making it illegal, perhaps going so far as to make all types of lenses illegal even those used for eyeglasses. Now you might have small numbers of people willing to experiment with lenses and microscopy in secret but if the society wages a war on glass and actively persecutes and imprisons anyone involved in th…

The microscope was a tool for observing a new layer of objective, real, reproducible phenomenon within a previously inaccessible layer of our universe. Now, considering the conversation we're having, feel free to take "objective and real" with a grain of salt, but what I mean is that they are internally consistent, verifiable, reproducible, etc.

Psychedelics have so far proven to be capable of temporarily rewiring our already highly flawed, subjective consciousness computers, in ways that can be potentially useful, but mostly seem to produce epiphanies that are rooted entirely in subjectivity, entirely fabricated. I don't really care at all if you had an experience that told you that all life existed on a 4 dimensional tetrahedron rotating through time. I do care, though, if you saw some behavior in a bacteria through a microscope which other people can observe and similarly draw their own judgements from.

That doesn't mean that I don't think that already intelligent people can't benefit from an occasional new perspective, potentially brought about by psychedelics in the same way that it could be brought on by a move to a new country, or a walk outside, but that doesn't mean that I think that psychedelics are the gateway to an entire frontier on consciousness.

Re: Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? Do you think they are less sensical than non-users? Or are you implying that the author was under the influence at the time of writing?

There seem to be a specific cluster of personality traits found frequently in hallucinogen users. Whether a selection of who takes the drugs, who talks about it after, or a common effect of the drugs and how they're taken. Someone presently under the influence would probably say something stranger. What seems likely is that they're very potent tools to change how the mind works, possibly for the better if used in the…

> There seem to be a specific cluster of personality traits found frequently in hallucinogen users.

Upon what specific past information consumption activities, and in what quantities, do you base this claim (and others)?

I pose this question literally, not rhetorically. You've exhibited significant self-confidence and strong judgement of others, it seems fair that you are held to the same standard.

I have a feeling you have less knowledge in this domain than you think.

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