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Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

york.ac.uk

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Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#51

Post by PUSH_AX »

Aerroon wrote: post #46
Aloha wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really inhaling something burning is bad. Pretty much every other form of tobacco that is not cigarettes is less bad.

I would even go further: inhaling pretty much anything other than air is harmful in the long-term. I imagine if you inhaled helium several times a day for decades that it would also mess something up.

I don’t think this really holds up, for example helium itself is chemically inert and not toxic. The main risk from inhaling helium is probably oxygen displacement at a push.

Millions of people have been using inhalers to control asthma too, this well studied and agreed to be safe. This is just off the top of my head.

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#52

Post by MajorTakeaway »

DANmode wrote: post #32
dr_dshiv wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“1 hour, full power” is the dream. Something where I could get those last things done in the evening without disrupting my sleep. Chemically possible? Why not?

Lots of drugs will get you where you’re looking to go. Going to bed and waking up an hour earlier, working immediately upon wakefulness, will keep you there.

"The star that burns twice as bright lasts half as long, Roy."

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#53

Post by nine_k »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #44
esperent wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also great for totally messing up your brain chemistry and your reward wiring. Wouldn't touch it myself. I'm sure if you did it once or twice a year it'd be fine but let's be real, anyone who's willing to take it in the first place (outside of having a genuine medical reason like narcolepsy/ADHD) will want to take it a lot more than that. Besides, in the long run - measured over weeks or months - these absolutel…

ADHD stimulants promised a lot in terms of motivation -- but only made me do the thing I already wanted to do instead of work... more. So instead of plugging away on house work or chores or my employer's boring work, I was building compilers and databases from scratch at 3am, unable to sleep. And then I checked my blood pressure. Oops. Also seemed directly implicated in a loved one of mine acquiring an eating disorde…

Sad! It mush have been something amphetamine-based. Ritalin, from experience, makes me visibly grumpy, because everything is wrong! Everything should be properly fixed! The desk should be cleaned. The code should be reviewed, bugs fixed, tests expanded and enhanced. That ticket is annoyingly obvious, it should be done in 10 minutes, dammit. Well, more like an hour, but now it's fixed for real. The chair squeaks, it's insufferable, where are my hex bits? Etc, etc.

It wears out quickly enough though, maybe in 3 hours.

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#54

Post by AareyBaba »

storus wrote: post #18

Paradoxically, nicotine has some medical use in e.g. displacing viral debris and autoantibodies from nAChR (nicotinic acetylcholine receptors) due to having highest affinity to these receptors, which seems to help with (long) Covid; "smoker paradox" in lower covid-related hospitalizations.

[dead]

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#55

Post by cmrdporcupine »

nine_k wrote: post #53
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADHD stimulants promised a lot in terms of motivation -- but only made me do the thing I already wanted to do instead of work... more. So instead of plugging away on house work or chores or my employer's boring work, I was building compilers and databases from scratch at 3am, unable to sleep. And then I checked my blood pressure. Oops. Also seemed directly implicated in a loved one of mine acquiring an eating disorde…

Sad! It mush have been something amphetamine-based. Ritalin, from experience, makes me visibly grumpy, because everything is wrong! Everything should be properly fixed! The desk should be cleaned. The code should be reviewed, bugs fixed, tests expanded and enhanced. That ticket is annoyingly obvious, it should be done in 10 minutes, dammit. Well, more like an hour, but now it's fixed for real. The chair squeaks, it's…

Yeah, no, I trialed both vyvanse (amphetamine) and concerta (ritalin-ish). Both stimulants, and basically the same downsides to both.

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#56

Post by falcor84 »

DANmode wrote: post #50
falcor84 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN guidelines say "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says". The way I understand it is that different people on the thread often have different ways of thinking about the topic, and we shouldn't dismiss something because it's not what "we" were talking about. In this case, it was obvious to you that the parent was talking about smoking tobacco, right? So you can either engag…

Which parent?! No!, we’re specifically trying to avoid talking about tobacco. We’re trying to talk about nicotine !

Who's trying to avoid talking about tobacco? TFA is titled "Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine", and my sense is that the thread is very much about which of the effects of smoking are explained by nicotine, and which are better explained by other factors of smoking tobacco.

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#57

Post by dyauspitr »

avadodin wrote: post #38
dyauspitr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chewing tobacco causes mouth cancer. Nicotine is okay, everything else in the tobacco leaf no so much.

On a scale from the-state-of-california cancer to exposed-to-sublethal-amounts-of-ionizing-radiation cancer, how worried should I be?

Pretty seriously worried.

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#58

Post by dyauspitr »

lunchbucket wrote: post #45
avadodin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a scale from the-state-of-california cancer to exposed-to-sublethal-amounts-of-ionizing-radiation cancer, how worried should I be?

It's a serious concern and switching to synthetic nicotine products may prolong your life. All tobacco products are highly carcinogenic. Contrary to what was said earlier it is not really about the smoking (though of course that makes things worse). Nicotine products aren't safe; they are highly addictive and may exacerbate tumors that are already there. But they're far less addictive than tobacco products and they p…

You’re conflating danger and addiction. In this case nicotine is highly addictive but close to harmless.

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#59

Post by DANmode »

falcor84 wrote: post #56
DANmode wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which parent?! No!, we’re specifically trying to avoid talking about tobacco. We’re trying to talk about nicotine !

Who's trying to avoid talking about tobacco? TFA is titled "Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine", and my sense is that the thread is very much about which of the effects of smoking are explained by nicotine, and which are better explained by other factors of smoking tobacco.

> the thread is very much about

It is now.

I’m one of the top level comments just trying to discuss and highlight isolated nicotine.

Barely relevant now.

Re: Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

#60

Post by DANmode »

Aerroon wrote: post #46
Aloha wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really inhaling something burning is bad. Pretty much every other form of tobacco that is not cigarettes is less bad.

I would even go further: inhaling pretty much anything other than air is harmful in the long-term. I imagine if you inhaled helium several times a day for decades that it would also mess something up.

Turned this thread absolutely useless, thanks.
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