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This Is Awkward: Mushrooms That Cause 'Tiny Human' Hallucinations Don't Contain Psychedelics (www.sciencealert.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/science@lemmy.world
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[–] 169 points 4 months ago (8 children)

"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.

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  • [–] 38 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago*

    Now it gets interesting, as they try to figure out the mechanism. It's interesting that it can be cooked out of the mushrooms over enough time.

    I love mushrooms, and sometime cook them well-done, for burgers and such, and sometimes I keep them medium, for eggs and spaghetti sauce. I'd probably be tripping now and then.

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