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Could decriminalisation solve Scotland’s drug problem?
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Category Archives: Nutrition
New approach shows hydrogen can be combined with electricity to make pharmaceutical drugs
The world needs greener ways to make chemicals. In a new study, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers demonstrate one potential path toward this goal by adapting hydrogen fuel cell technologies. These technologies are already used to power some electric vehicles, laptops and cell phones.
“The chemical industry is a massive energy consumer, and there is a big push to decarbonize the industry,” says Shannon Stahl, a professor in the UW-Madison Department of Chemistry who guided much of the research. “Renewable electricity can provide energy to produce chemicals with a much lower carbon footprint than burning fossil fuels.”
The conventional process uses large quantities of zinc metal as the source of electrons, but handling zinc is complicated and generates large amounts of environmentally unfriendly waste. Working with scientists at the pharmaceutical maker Merck & Co. Inc., UW-Madison chemists and engineers sought to develop a more sustainable method to manufacture ingredients needed to make many types of drugs.
In their search for an alternative process, the researchers took inspiration from hydrogen fuel cells, which use hydrogen gas as the source of electrons to generate electricity.
“The process we are working with needs a green source of electrons,” says Stahl. “We realized that fuel cell technology could be modified to make chemicals rather than electricity,”
Hydrogen gas is an ideal choice in many ways, according to Stahl. It can be generated from renewable electricity, and it creates very little waste. Developing a hydrogen-based way to make pharmaceuticals aligns with renewed interest in a “hydrogen economy.”
“This work is connected to a broader effort to create a hydrogen infrastructure that goes beyond fuel cells and energy production,” says Mathew Johnson, a postdoctoral researcher in the chemistry department who led the study. “This work shows that hydrogen can be combined with electricity to make new drugs.”
The researchers developed a system that uses a type of organic compound called a quinone to pull electrons away from hydrogen. An important feature of this process is that it works well in the absence of water. Fuel cells typically need water to operate effectively, but water can interfere with steps used to make the drug ingredients.
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The system then uses electricity to supercharge the electrons, giving the electrons more energy than hydrogen could normally provide.
The team, which included postdoctoral researcher Jack Twilton, chemistry professor Daniel Weix and chemical and biological engineering professor Thatcher Root, described their new system in a paper published Aug. 21 in the journal Nature[1] . They show how it can be used to make dozens of important organic molecules, including a large batch of a pharmaceutical ingredient.
The team is now working to improve the process so it can be used for industrial-scale production. And Stahl and his collaborators see even bigger opportunities for this technology.
“This is a broadly applicable technology for chemical production,” says Johnson. “Many chemical processes need electrons. This is not limited to pharmaceuticals. It should be a very versatile technology.”
Want to know how light works? Try asking a mechanic
Since the 17th century, when Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens first debated the nature of light, scientists have been puzzling over whether light is best viewed as a wave or a particle — or perhaps, at the quantum level, even both at once. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have revealed a new connection between the two perspectives, using a 350-year-old mechanical theorem — ordinarily used to describe the movement of large, physical objects like pendulums and planets — to explain some of the most complex behaviors of light waves.
The work, led by Xiaofeng Qian, assistant professor of physics at Stevens and reported in the August 17 online issueof Physical Review Research, also proves for the first time that a light wave’s degree of non-quantum entanglement exists in a direct and complementary relationship with its degree of polarization. As one rises, the other falls, enabling the level of entanglement to be inferred directly from the level of polarization, and vice versa. This means that hard-to-measure optical properties such as amplitudes, phases and correlations — perhaps even these of quantum wave systems — can be deduced from something a lot easier to measure: light intensity.
“We’ve known for over a century that light sometimes behaves like a wave, and sometimes like a particle, but reconciling those two frameworks has proven extremely difficult,” said Qian “Our work doesn’t solve that problem — but it does show that there are profound connections between wave and particle concepts not just at the quantum level, but at the level of classical light-waves and point-mass systems.”
Qian’s team used a mechanical theorem, originally developed by Huygens in a 1673 book on pendulums, that explains how the energy required to rotate an object varies depending on the object’s mass and the axis around which it turns. “This is a well-established mechanical theorem that explains the workings of physical systems like clocks or prosthetic limbs,” Qian explained. “But we were able to show that it can offer new insights into how light works, too.”
This 350-year-old theorem describes relationships between masses and their rotational momentum, so how could it be applied to light where there is no mass to measure? Qian’s team interpreted the intensity of a light as the equivalent of a physical object’s mass, then mapped those measurements onto a coordinate system that could be interpreted using Huygens’ mechanical theorem. “Essentially, we found a way to translate an optical system so we could visualize it as a mechanical system, then describe it using well-established physical equations,” explained Qian.
Once the team visualized a light wave as part of a mechanical system, new connections between the wave’s properties immediately became apparent — including the fact that entanglement and polarization stood in a clear relationship with one another.
“This was something that hadn’t been shown before, but that becomes very clear once you map light’s properties onto a mechanical system,” said Qian. “What was once abstract becomes concrete: using mechanical equations, you can literally measure the distance between ‘center of mass’ and other mechanical points to show how different properties of light relate to one another.”
Clarifying these relationships could have important practical implications, allowing subtle and hard-to-measure properties of optical systems — or even quantum systems — to be deduced from simpler and more robust measurements of light intensity, Qian explained. More speculatively, the team’s findings suggest the possibility of using mechanical systems to simulate and better-understand the strange and complex behaviors of quantum wave systems.
“That still lies ahead of us, but with this first study we’ve shown clearly that by applying mechanical concepts, it’s possible to understand optical systems in an entirely new way,” Qian said. “Ultimately, this research is helping to simplify the way we understand the world, by allowing us to recognize the intrinsic underlying connections between apparently unrelated physical laws.”
Did sabertooth tigers purr or roar?
When a sabertooth tiger called out, what noise did it make — a mighty roar or a throaty purr? A new study from North Carolina State University examined the data behind the arguments for each vocalization and found that the answer was more nuanced than they thought — and that it could depend on the shape of a few small bones.
Modern cats belong to one of two groups: either the pantherine “big cats,” including the roaring lions, tigers and jaguars; or Felinae “little cats,” which include purring cats like lynxes, cougars, ocelots and domestic cats.
“Evolutionarily speaking, sabertooths split off the cat family tree before these other modern groups did,” says Adam Hartstone-Rose, professor of biological sciences at NC State and corresponding author of the research. “This means that lions are more closely related to housecats than either are to sabertooths.
“That’s important because the debate over the kind of vocalization a sabertooth tiger would have made relies upon analyzing the anatomy of a handful of tiny bones located in the throat,” Hartstone-Rose says. “And the size, shape and number of those bones differ between modern roaring and purring cats.”
Although vocalization is driven by the larynx and soft tissue in the throat, not bones, anatomists noticed that the bones responsible for anchoring those tissues in place — the hyoid bones — differed in size and number between roaring and purring cats.
“While humans have only one hyoid bone, purring cats have nine bones linked together in a chain and roaring cats have seven,” says Ashley Deutsch, a Ph.D. student at NC State and lead author of the research. “The missing bones are located toward the top of the hyoid structure near where it connects to the skull.”
“Because sabertooth tigers only have seven bones in their hyoid structure, the argument has been that of course they roared,” Hartstone-Rose says. “But when we looked at the anatomy of modern cats, we realized that there isn’t really hard evidence to support this idea, since the bones themselves aren’t responsible for the vocalization. That relationship between the number of bones and the sound produced hasn’t ever really been proven.”
The researchers looked at the hyoid structures of four species of roaring cats: lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars; and five species of purring cats: cougars, cheetahs, caracals, servals and ocelots. They compared these to 105 hyoid bones from the iconic sabertooth tiger Smilodon fatalis.
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“You can argue that since the sabertooths only have seven bones they roared, but that’s not the whole story,” Hartstone-Rose says. “The anatomy is weird. They’re missing extra bones that purring cats have, but the shape and size of the hyoid bones are distinct. Some of them are shaped more like those of purring cats, but much bigger.”
According to the researchers, if the missing bones (called epihyoid bones) were key to different vocalizations, the bones most closely connected to them should look different between the two groups. However, those bones looked very similar in shape whether they came from purring or roaring cats.
In fact, the researchers saw more shape variation in the bones closer to the vocal apparatus; i.e., the thyrohyoid and basihyoid bones. The uniformity of the upper bones between the two groups suggests that if the hyoid structure plays a role in vocalization, the lower bones are more important than the upper ones. So having these key hyoid bones shaped like those of purring cats could indicate that they purred rather than roared.
“We found that despite what history has told us about the number of bones in the hyoid structure, no one has validated the significance of that difference,” Hartstone-Rose says. “If vocalization is about the number of bones in the hyoid structure, then sabertooths roared. If it’s about shape, they might have purred. Due to the fact that the sabertooths have things in common with both groups, there could even be a completely different vocalization.”
“It is perhaps most likely that the size of the hyoids plays a role in the pitch of vocalization,” says Deutsch. “Although Smilodon wasn’t quite as big as the largest modern cats, its hyoid bones are substantially larger than those of any of their living relatives, so potentially they had even deeper vocalizations than the largest tigers and lions.”
The work appears in the Journal of Morphology and was supported by NC State’s Office of Undergraduate Research. Brian Langerhans, associate professor of biology at NC State, and former NC State undergraduate Deanna Flores also contributed to the work.
Exploring Psychedelic Microdosing
Recently I’ve taken an interest in microdosing, specifically with magic mushrooms. I began learning about it a few months ago and then learned even more at the Psychedelic Science conference in June. I’ve also had some recent conversations with people I know who’ve been microdosing, all of them reporting positive long-term effects. Most use mushrooms for microdosing, although one prefers microdosing with LSD.
The point of microdosing is to take a very small amount of a psychedelic substance in order to access some neurological gains without any obvious psychedelic effects or impairments. Those gains can be both short-term and long-term, with some people reporting ongoing benefits even after they stop all microdosing.
Some people say that the standard is to microdose at a level where you can’t consciously discern any effects, at least not in the moment-by-moment experience as you go through your day. Others seem to want some detectable improvements like feeling a noticeable mood boost, but nothing negative that would interfere with their normal daily functioning.
Based on what researchers have been reporting, microdosing seems to yield the biggest gains for people who are depressed, anxiety-prone, or dealing with PTSD. That’s not me, so that isn’t part of my motivation for exploring it. I have, however, met and talked to people who claim to have used microdosing with positive results in reducing their depression and anxiety.
I’ve also heard anecdotal evidence of other benefits, such as with creativity and motivation. Truly there’s a long list of benefits people have reported, including a reduction in pre-menstrual symptoms.
Could this all be due to the placebo effect? Yes, as I shared from the recent PS2023 conference, that could indeed be a big part of it, especially if the doses are so small as to not create any obvious effects. The way I think about it is: The lower the dosage, the more you’re leaning on the placebo effect. The higher the dosage, the more obvious it becomes that you’re going beyond the placebo effect.
Since the placebo effect is still real and beneficial, for many people that’s a good enough reason to microdose – it activates the placebo effect, which can still be very helpful. Then you can play around with that effect, such as by setting different kinds of intentions for how you want the microdose to benefit you. Since psychedelics can have such a wide range of impacts, microdosing may grant access to an extremely flexible version of the placebo effect. It’s not just an antidepressant or a pain reliever – it could be a motivation booster, a creativity enhancer, or perhaps whatever you want it to be. At least that’s the potential promise of microdosing.
On the other hand, some people prefer to explore in the range between microdosing and minidosing. With minidosing you are inviting some mild psychedelic effects to come through, but you can still function well since you aren’t taking so much that you’re fully tripping. It may be unwise to drive or operate machinery when you’re increasing the dosage to that level, but it could be an interesting range to explore for its effects on creativity, personal insights, and decision making.
I’ve seen mixed reports from people who’ve explored in the range where some obvious effects are coming through. Some people like it and find it beneficial; they appreciate how it stretches their thinking and makes them more resourceful. Others find that it brings in some negative side effects like a reduction in focus and concentration.
I think that how we explore the range between microdosing and minidosing depends on our intentions and how the substance affects us. I could see a modest microdose being appropriate for increasing motivation to flow through a batch of routine tasks, whereas a slightly stronger dose might be better suited to a deeply introspective journaling session focused on generating novel solutions to tricky problems.
Initial Testing
I decided to start testing microdosing shortly after returning from my 3-week UK trip. I began on Wednesday last week, and I did 4 days in a row. Now I’m taking 3 days off, and then I’ll continue cycling with 4 days on, 3 days off.
All microdosing protocols include days and weeks off. The reason is that if you take magic mushrooms daily, you will quickly build a tolerance, and then you’d have to keep taking larger and larger amounts to get the same effect. So it’s unwise to take them daily, even when microdosing.
I decided to follow the protocol recommended by Paul Stamets. In the past I believe he recommended cycles of 5 days on, 2 days off. But I found a more recent recommendation from him for 4 days on, 3 days off. That fits nicely into the span of the week, so it seemed like a reasonable way to begin.
This cycle runs for 4 weeks, and then 2 weeks are taken off completely. Then repeat if desired. I’m not sure how long I’ll do this, but I’d like to go for several weeks at least if the results are promising and I’m not having any negative side effects. As far as experiments go, this one is pretty easy. It’s not like I have to not eat for several weeks in a row like I did in 2017. 😉
I began very sloppily here since I didn’t have a proper microscale for measuring such small amounts of mushrooms. So I just used a kitchen scale to measure a larger amount, and then I eyeballed it select a small nibble of shrooms that were roughly in the range of 0.1 to 0.3g (100 – 300mg). That’s the range I’ve seen recommended for microdosing, although some people prefer to go even lower, like around 50mg.
So I did the first 4 days this way – very imprecisely – just to get the ball rolling. On the first day, I crushed the dried shrooms with my fingers and make them into some tea with ginger and mint. Another day I mixed them with ground espresso and made an Americano with them. The other two days I just ate them straight.
Along the way I read that it’s best to have a microdose on an empty stomach, like 30 minutes before any food, since taking it with food can diminish the effects, so I’ll make that refinement going forward.
It’s too soon to tell if there’s much contrast between microdosing and not, but I did have some very good and productive days there, and I feel good about continuing. On Friday I had a long list of tasks that I didn’t feel particularly motivated to do – a large batch of admin items mostly. I figured I’d get through about half of them that day, but I ended up completing the entire list. The previous two days were also very productive, a bit better than average. My mind felt very calm and clear. But I wasn’t doing any creative work during those days, so I’m curious to see if there’s an effect when I write something.
I also noticed some extra happy feelings on the first two days, similar to when I eat all raw. Sometimes I sensed mild perceptual differences, as if the world looked a little more 3D than usual, like I was more aware of the depth of field in front of me. On the second day I did some intensive journaling and felt super clear about some decisions.
Today is an my second non-microdosing day in a row, and it’s going well so far. I have heard some people say that they actually feel better effects on their off days than on their active microdosing days. I’m just getting started with this, so I’ll need more time to figure that out, but my mind is feeling very good. Even if it’s just a little bit of the placebo effect, I certainly don’t mind it when I’m enjoying a nice flow of action.
I do like the overall promise of microdosing, and I sense that it could be a useful method for helping to stretch my mind a bit more in various directions, allowing me to nudge my thinking and actions down fresh pathways with greater ease and less resistance.
Some people say that microdosing brings them closer to the person they were meant to be. I can see why that may be so.
Refining the Approach
Now that I’ve gotten started, I want to refine the approach and be more precise about it, especially in terms of dialing in the dosages. I don’t know what my optimal microdosing amount will be, but I imagine that it will be in the range of 100 to 300mg.
This weekend I acquired some extra pieces to help me, including a microscale, so I can more precisely measure tiny amounts. I didn’t realize they were so inexpensive – about $15. I don’t want to recommend one since I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but I basically went with one of the top ones listed on Amazon. I think they’re probably all pretty comparable. I don’t need precision down to 0.001g for this. I also got some vegan capsules (size 00), so I can make my own mixtures.
I intend to test the Stamets Stack, which combines magic mushrooms with Lion’s Mane and niacin. You can Google that if you want to learn more about it and what the benefits are supposed to be, but basically it’s intended to increase the neurological benefits of microdosing, helping small amounts to go further.
I think I’ll make a few capsules with 100mg, some with 200mg, and some with 300mg of powdered magic mushrooms. I’ll probably use 100mg of niacin per capsule, and then I’ll fill the rest with powdered Lion’s Mane. I should have all that ready in time for my next microdose this Wednesday, so I can begin Week 2 with more precision.
Initially I want to experiment with taking these different amounts to see what the effects are. Then I might settle into a preferred level for the long run. But I think it’s likely that I may find different doses appropriate for different kinds of experiences, so even long-term, I may not limit myself to a fixed dosage each microdosing day.
I might also make a few 500mg capsules, which gets more into minidose territory, to see what the effects are at that level. There may be some occasions where that’s a good fit, like if I want to have a deeply introspective day, and I don’t mind if some mild psychedelic effects are coming through as well. I work from home most days, so I don’t need to worry about commuting, business meetings, and other Golgafrinchan activities. I’d prefer not to feel semi-trippy during Zoom calls though, although that would likely be fine if it happened during one of the Mystery Mixer calls we do in Conscious Growth Club (since that format is meant to be fully co-creative).
I’m happy to share more updates about this as I continue to explore. In the meantime if you’re curious about it, it’s easy to find articles, stories, and videos of people sharing their microdosing results and experiences online.
I wonder if readers will notice any differences in my writing in the weeks ahead. This is the first post I’ve written while exploring microdosing (although on one of the off days). I’ll be sure to try writing some posts on active microdosing days as well.
Readers’ Reactions to My Psychedelic Writings
You may be curious to know how people have been reacting to my recent writings about exploring psychedelics this year. Technically I already wrote about exploring ayahuasca back in 2019 and another psychedelic experience in 2022, so this isn’t the first year I’ve written about such topics. But I am writing more about it this year because I’m exploring more.
I’ve actually received zero criticism about this topic. Nothing. Not a single critical comment.
Maybe I’ve conditioned my audience not to bother, but I don’t think it’s that. When doing research on this and looking at the comments, like on YouTube, they tend to be overwhelmingly noncritical too. What I’ve seen elsewhere aligns with the same kind of feedback I’ve been receiving personally.
I have received a lot of non-critical feedback on this – definitely not crickets – and it’s almost all from people sharing about their own experiences with psychedelics, however abundant or limited. Many people shared tips and advice, such as for reducing nausea when taking mushrooms. There’s been some of back-and-forth conversation with people on this too. I very much appreciate and enjoy this type of feedback. It’s intelligent, helpful, and clearly well-intentioned.
It’s clear that many people are curious about this, and it feels purposeful to explore this and to share about the journey. Sometimes I may not be able to share all of the details, but I promise to be honest in what I’m able to share. I know that as I’ve been looking into this, I really appreciated hearing people’s honest reports about their experiences. This is a complex space, and honesty is so crucial here.
My heart also goes out to people who really need viable alternatives to endless pharmaceuticals, where the intentionality behind the drugs isn’t aligned with people’s long-term health and well-being. Many people are finding renewed hope in emerging psychedelic therapies, especially in overcoming depression, anxiety, and addiction.
What I like about psychedelics is that they provide such a flexible canvas for exploring self-development. It’s not really the substances that appeal to me. I’m interested in the gateway they offer to a world of greater conscious intentionality. I regard psychedelics as intentionality amplifiers.
Psychedelics can be extremely humbling and also empowering. They can show us the results and consequences of our past intentionality, and they can give us glimpses of what we could experience by shifting our intentionality in new directions. One of my goals is to continue cultivating a deeply trusting relationship with intentional psychedelic exploration, as an extension of cultivating deep trust in life. Microdosing seems like an excellent way to build a stronger baseline level of trust.
BBC science correspondent has heart age assessed by AI
BBC science correspondent Pallab Ghosh has the age of his heart assessed by artificial intelligence.
‘Cruel, calculated’ Lucy Letby to spend rest of life in prison
Giving the nurse a whole-life sentence, the judge says there was “a malevolence bordering on sadism”.
What the babies’ parents told Lucy Letby as she was sentenced
The dad of two murdered boys says “it destroyed me”, and a mum says she relives an attack “every day”.
Morrisons’ bras and pants carry NHS cancer check label
Underwear labels urge people to contact their GP if they spot symptoms of breast or testicular cancer.
Lucy Letby: Government orders independent inquiry
The inquiry will investigate the circumstances around the deaths, as well as the handling of concerns.
