If you consumed a wild mushroom and suddenly started seeing tiny people around you, you might reasonably assume it contained a familiar psychedelic.
  • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1 day

    “Biosynthetic gene mining of the L. asiatica genome found no close hits with any genes known in the production of mushroom psychoactive compounds,” write the researchers in their published paper.

    “This supports our hypothesis of the presence of a novel unidentified metabolite responsible for the unique hallucinogenic properties of L. asiatica.”

    Yeah. No known hallucinogens.

    • DougPiranha42@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 day

      Exactly. Or even- no known hallucinogens synthesized by their canonical biochemical pathways by enzymes expressed from the host species genome.
      The OG hallucinogen, ergot, is ingested by eating wheat. If one presumed that the substance is made by wheat, and mined the wheat genome, they would never find the genes for its synthesis, because the hallucinogen is made by mold growing on the wheat.
      It’s very rare you can draw a strong conclusion from negative results.

      • boydster@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1 day

        Rye is the most common place ergot grows, which is another common bread grain. I am not disagreeing with your post, and ergot can grow on wheat too, just pointing out that rye is a much more common source of egot contamination.

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          17 hours

          I dont really know these things but i always just assumed rye (and barely) was just a kind of wilder less domesticated wheat.

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 day

    Maybe it’s not a hallucination at all. Maybe the mushroom is actually an anti-hallucinogen. It suppresses the hallucinations that normally prevent us from seeing the tiny people.

  • cattywampas@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1 day

    Well it does contain a psychedelic drug, just not one that we’ve identified yet.

  • gnufuu@lemmy.caEnglish
    1 day

    Lanmaoa asiatica

    My sincerest apologies. I know the way out.

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 day

      I had that mower. It’s a good mower. It definitely could do the job.

  • GreyShuck@feddit.ukEnglish
    1 day

    Regardless of the actual metabolite responsible, this does raise the question of whether, if any other species consume them and are susceptible, they see tiny versions of their own species?

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1 day

        Monkeys seem like a good place to start. Similar enough to us to see if it’s unique to humans, small enough to not start ripping someone’s face off if it goes badly.

          • DougPiranha42@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1 day

            Mackaques love touchscreens, amd can be trained to do complex tasks on tablets placed in their enclosures.
            You make a test where they need to press a button when and only when they see tiny monkeys that you can project on a screen or on their floor.
            Then you give the drug at various concentrations and placebo, and see if there is a dose dependent increase in the monkeys indicaions of mini monkeys.
            Then you can repeat the experiment after treatment with antipsychotic, if it prevents the mini monkey reporting, you already have a hint at the mechanism.
            Any nonhuman primate lab can do this from 1-2 million dollars, should we start a go fund me?

          • Danarchy@lemmy.nzEnglish
            1 day

            Get one of them sign language moneys and see if they start asking for tiny bananas

          • AlteredEgo@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1 day

            Can’t you just ask them? Like train them to show what they are seeing by pointing to one of multiple pictures.

          • Gerudo@lemmy.zipEnglish
            1 day

            I think you could watch pupil response, body temp, sweating, brain scans, etc and get a good idea.

    • magnue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1 day

      I always wonder if the cows get high. On the right day it’s like daisies in summer and they’re just munching grass all day.

      • Donkter@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23 hours

        The psylocibin mushroom specifically grows on cow shit so some of them have to be getting dosed at some point.

  • rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1 day

    Clickbait headline, the primary object of that study was to figure out phylogeny of these mushrooms. finding no known genes associated with known hallucinogens is a bonus and pretty useless info because the compound responsible for this activity is not known, how do you know how it’s made then

  • deegeese@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1 day

    Awkward? Unexpected results are the building blocks of science!

    We learned a new question to be answered.

  • Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.netEnglish
    1 day

    Misleading title aside, these mushrooms sound really cool. It’s a shame they’re so hard to find.