Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
1–10 of 62 posts
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#2You may enjoy the original paper[0] a lot more, the simplified article is very... simple.
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#3Pairs well with https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tobacco-psychedelics-psilocybi... !
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#4It would be great if they could improve upon it.
I find nicotine to be an underperforming chemical, despite its popularity. A bit more of a cognitive kick would be nice. Know what I mean?
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#5It would be great if they could improve upon it. I find nicotine to be an underperforming chemical, despite its popularity. A bit more of a cognitive kick would be nice. Know what I mean?
I know there's at least one nicotine analogue that's been sold. Pretty sure it's carcinogenic, but maybe there are some other options.
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#6And the implication is they can modify tomato's DNA to produce nicotine, just like Tomacco from The Simpsons. The Simpsons always predict everything.
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#7[flagged]
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#8[flagged]
How exactly would they ask that question 10,000 years ago if they didn't know what molecules were, much less nicotine?
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#9[flagged]
Well, the author specifically mentions the puzzle of how it produces nicotine. Nicotine was first identified and isolated as a chemical in 1828, based on a quick google. So, no one was wondering about nicotine production before then because they didn’t know what it was.
Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
#10[flagged]
How exactly would they ask that question 10,000 years ago if they didn't know what molecules were, much less nicotine?
A curious question. Those same people also bred brassica oleraceae into so many different crops so they had to have SOME idea of how plants worked. Maybe they did not attribute it to molecules but growing conditions or locations, or something.
Either way somebody somewhere wondered about this before 1820.