Student discovers fungus predicted by Albert Hoffman
wvutoday.wvu.edu185 points by zafka 5 days ago
185 points by zafka 5 days ago
While it's been known for many years that endosymbiotic fungi are responsible for producing the ergot alkaloids in the Morning Glory plant family, and the recent discovery here is the identification of the host-specific fungal symbiont for the common decorative flower Ipomoea tricolor, this plant-fungus relationship was not known in the days of Albert Hoffman's research.
He is most famous for synthesizing and experiencing the effects of LSD from ergot-derived alkaloids; ergot is a fungal pathogen that grows on grain plants. He then identified psilocybin as the active psychoactive component of magic mushroom samples from Mexico.
When he turned his work to identifying the active component in Morning Glory plants, he presented his work showing that he'd discovered LSA, another ergot alkaloid. Other researchers accused him of having contaminated samples, because he'd found in plants compounds which were known only from the fungi kingdom. Hoffman's work was vindicated, in a sense, when the relationship of endosybiotic fungi (cryptic fungi which spend the majority of their lifecycle inside a plant) was later elucidated.
Really impressive that a student managed to find something Hofmann suspected nearly a century ago. Makes you wonder how many of these hidden chemists are still quietly working in symbiosis with plants, carrying out complex metabolic processes we haven’t noticed yet.
It also makes me think about how much untapped potential might be hiding in the ordinary plants we pass by every day.
> It also makes me think about how much untapped potential might be hiding in the ordinary plants we pass by every day.
A ton, which is one selfish reason the genetic diversity collapse is such a negative. In this particular discovery, we already knew there was something interesting about the morning glory plant and it took us decades and decades to find it. To give you an idea how little plant life has been studied, we have sequenced the gnome of less than one thousand species.
Think of the millions of years of evolution as knowledge discovered by non-human species. When we extinct an under-studied species, we don't know what we're losing. It's like burning the Alexandria library without any curiosity about what's inside it.
If a plant species going extinct is like burning a book, then it's a book that might contain medical knowledge that would help millions of people.
> Really impressive that a student managed to find something Hofmann suspected nearly a century ago.
Why is that impressive? I’m genuinely asking, I do not understand the obsessive fascination with “student discovered”. It’s like everyone expects “student” to mean “mentally incapacitated” and anything beyond tying their own shoes is impressive. Or is everyone so disillusioned with the educational system they are caught off guard when students apply what they’ve learned? If this same student had graduated two months before making the discovery, would it have made it less impressive or significant?
Perhaps the impressive thing is that it wasn't found for so long and finally was. Not that it was a student.
Perhaps, but that was not how it was worded. Like I said, I’m genuinely asking. If the original author wants to say “oh, I don’t think the student part is relay relevant”, then it’s all good. Otherwise it’s still all good but I want to understand their choice of mentioning the student.
wasn't found for so long and finally was
Now I'm not saying that a student shouldn't be able to find it. But in conventional wisdom it seems quite clear why one sounds more impressive than the other if you ask me.
A student is still learning. Not at the peak of knowledge/ability. While an "expert" or in the context of academia, a professor, would seem more knowledgeable. In that context, the wording seems expected / understandable.
Of course in reality in some real life contexts a professor might be more "stagnant" than a student that's trying to get a big discovery in order to earn a doctorate/professorship or course. But that's not "conventional wisdom" for the masses.
> (…) sounds more impressive (…) sounds more impressive (…)
You keep saying that, but my question was why they considered it to be more impressive. I understand an article might want anything to sound more impressive for clicks.
> If this is the case, isn't it quite clear
And no, I don’t agree that taking so long immediately makes it more impressive that a student did it. How many experts are actively searching? And how many students? There are always more of the latter than the former. After long, fortuitous encounters (which anyone can have) become more common.
You're reading a whole lot into how it's worded that isn't there.
A student generally lacks much of the experience and knowledge of a professional or academic, that's all.
This is a bit much, I think. It is impressive because it is rare for an undergraduate to make a discovery. It’s not disillusionment with the educational system; that seems pretty politically charged. Normally, undergrads are studying what has been already known and it is a small portion of them that to do so”undergrad research” and usually that does not rise to the level of publishing anything. It’s normally graduate (MS and PhD) students that do such things. Also, graduate students, particularly PhD students, are primarily concerned with research while undergrads are primarily concerned with classes (educationally anyway!). Also, it would have also been surprising, as you say, if the student had been graduated for two-months and not in graduate school to make such a discovery. So, it’s not some grand reason or indictment of society. In the end, it is just plainly uncommon.
> It is impressive because it is rare for an undergraduate to make a discovery.
Is it? Looks like every other science story of this nature is “high school student did X”, “student at university Y discovered Z”. Perhaps they are the minority, but I still feel they happen often enough that it’s not really deserving of the always mentioning that.
> It’s not disillusionment with the educational system; that seems pretty politically charged.
Any political charged statement you read there is 100% in your head. Maybe in the USA such a simple statement could be politically charged, but where I live everyone would look at you like you had just lost the plot if you suggested that response.
> So, it’s not some grand reason or indictment of society.
Again, neither was I suggesting it was, merely postulating any hypothesis that could make sense.
> In the end, it is just plainly uncommon.
Doesn’t seem uncommon enough for me to warrant the frequent emphasis, but thank you anyway for taking the time to reply.
>> drug LSD, which is used to treat conditions like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder
LSD can cause PTSD. Dr K of the "Healthy Gamer" YT channel gives that as the reason people shouldn't do LSD in this next 8-min video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So7hE1Ba_QA
The video is not about LSD or PTSD, so it would be nice if I could give a time index into where in the video Dr gives the warning, but sadly I don't have time right now.
LSD saved my life. I suffered chronic depression and anxiety with suicidal ideation, had tried multiple psychiatric drugs and forms of therapy, and nothing had improved (the failure of these officially-approved modes of treatment actually left me feeling much more hopeless). Taking LSD gave me the insight that this wasn't fundamental the the nature of being me, that there was hope that one day I could love my life. The road to get there has been difficult, and has involved intense (non-LSD) psychedelic-assisted therapy to deal with very deep childhood trauma, but that first fundamental glimmer that there's a reason to have hope came from an experience with LSD.
If I had listened to stern authority figures telling me that there's never a good reason to try it and it could only do me harm, I would in all likelihood be dead today.
Similar experience here. Historically traditional talk therapy only retraumatized me and was not going to be compatible with my personality. I had ran out of other treatment options (stimulants, SSRIs, EMDR, ECT, meditation/mindfulness...) before finally reaching for psilocybin purely out of desperation.
Combined with intensive integration therapy it has been the only treatment that had any positive effect. A lot of treatments have a risk profile in whether they will confirm my existing beliefs and only aggravate my situation (similar to above, failing to find "go to therapy" useful advice and opening myself to blame/unlovability from givers of the advice), but I hope I can go back sometime for a similar treatment if it's psychoactive.
It was no cure, and today I'm largely the person I was before treatment moodwise, but one thing I learned was for a condition such as mine, there is unlikely to ever be a cure. I had just the right amount of trauma that I can expect to manage my condition for the rest of my life. But what opinion do I choose to attach to this belief? That I'm okay with it. It wasn't my fault so there's not any sense in shaming myself for not finding what I can't have. At least one thing I can say is I found something that had an effect, and no matter how pessimistic I get, not even I can deny that with some depressive retort. This is not a sensation I'm familiar with. Before taking the drug I had lost all hope from believing my incompatibility with doctor-approved methods made me an untouchable, on top of already being depressed. It was clear my path forward would have to be paved away from the one society prescribes for me from then on.
Strangely I have no strong desire to take the drug again yet even though I am still depressed. I accept my life will be one of sometimes violent mood swings and I will have to be more patient with myself than in the past. I have made it my life's goal not to foist my malfunctioning brain's irrationality onto others at all costs. My condition is not my fault, but it is my responsibility to manage it. If I'm depressed now I just try to sit with it instead of fighting for things I know are unrealistic to have. I'm just not like most people, and I'm okay with that now, more or less.
That last paragraph just about knocked me out and is something I'll be thinking about for a long time. Thanks for sharing.
hey thank you for posting this. I'm sorry to hear about your condition but happy LSD was able to help a bit.
One unsolicited idea from a stranger: consider trying it again! I was in a similar situation for a long time (found it helpful but no strong desire to try it again), but multiple trips over time ended up being very helpful - for me at least.
It’s always risk vs reward. It turned you around, it can push healthy folks into a long lasting depression. Happy for you, but it isn’t a magical cure, it’s a chemical for twisting your synapses. As you’ve noted, having a guide through the experience and a purpose is vital.
> it’s a chemical for twisting your synapses
Thats an oversimplification to be polite. For most people it can bring the most intense and beautiful experiences their live can ever produce. Then there is (non-trivial) minority which has something broken in their core (which is a statement that can mean many things). Yes, its not for them, or only at great risk (and potentially great reward as OP wrote).
But man, I never ever came close to the simple pure beauty that I experienced repeatedly on mushrooms (for the sake of argument cca 1:1 to LSD), never with any sort of guide, just let my mind wander to places it wants to go.
And I've got married, have 2 beautiful healthy kids, was there to cut umbilical cord for both, climbed extreme peaks like Matterhorn, hiked for weeks and months in himalaya and other places around the world, all very intense.
Psychedelics changed permanently perspective on life and important matters quite a bit. Experienced very intense spiritual moments, despite being cca agnostic (and it just confirmed and enforced my views to be clear). For all the bad it can do and does, it adds so much good to mankind. Its a very powerful tool.
Your post actually makes me sad. You have such a wonderful life: kids, wife, privilege and wealth to travel to Europe. But the most beautiful experience in your mind wasn’t any of that, it was tripping on shrooms? If you are trying to make me not want to try psychedelics you did well.
The glass is half full of half empty? Did GP have reduced intensity of experiences related to his family, or they were of "normal" intensity, just intensity of shrooms experiences were above it?
The person you reply to sounds like someone who kknocks it without having tried it. I base this on the full comment, and more specifically on the fragment "tripping on shrooms". Drugs all enhance and alter what's inside you, for better and for worse, controllable or not. If climbing Mt Everest was your most eye opening and amazing experience, does that somehow reduce the value of your wife and kids? Such a strange premise...
I mean I hear former junkies say the same thing about heroin after they kick. “It was the greatest pleasure I’ll ever know,” they’ll tell you with utmost sincerity. More a bug than feature, to me, YMMV
LSD and heroin are pretty uncomparable. And those people were right: heroin is the greatest pleasure, that's its whole thing.
Neither psych drugs nor therapy nor LSD is a cure for depression. I too have had chronic depression and anxiety. Maybe I have had a more severe cocktail of mental conditions. Psych drug informed me where the irritation came from, caused me to rebel, but then it proceeded to give me suicidal ideation. Therapy was like a person talking a language I didn’t understand. alcohol was the most addicting experience as an escape from problems. I imagine lsd was an escape from reality.
The ultimate cure for depression: call this new line of sadness and hopelessness and despair as the baseline for what life is. And any ounce of hope, happiness, bloom is a gift and blessing that you appreciate without taking for granted. And then you structure yourself to live for those fleeting moments. And suicide is a world of persistent misery many times worse than what you are experiencing.
But instead you took LSD, and found yourself hope yet the message can be a complete deception. What will you do when you realize that? All you have done is separated yourself from ever understanding your reality because of that hope.
People who suffer from depression are those who are unable to connect with their world. Either trauma, anger, or confusion will cause them separation and difficulty of integration. There is this book called feeling good I think which goes into CBT. The first few pages repeats one thing relentlessly: you have exaggerated the negatives in your world in order to cope with it.
Some people adopt supremacy complexes to give themselves new meaning and curse out all irritations. This is a temporary solution because it swings them into the other side of disconnect eventually
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Then you might have misread what a supremacy complex is. It is a position of defeat in the face of adversity so you seek avenues of justification for your superiority.
I personally know some whose life was destroyed by it. LSD totally shattered them.
10 years later and this person still isn't right.
Pink Floyd’s man who recently passed away may be an example. Brian Wilson another, I heard him say his one regret was psychedelics as they scrambled his brain… I’m all for them when used with respect and correct (mind)set and setting. Lots of human progress has came off the back of psychedelics but they not for the common people. It takes a brave and worthy (shaman) to guide someone through the collective conscious
Those guys were using a shit ton of drugs of all forms, so I'm not sure a single hit of LSD (which I'm sure was many) was the culprit.
For me, I've used LSD a few times, both alone, and with a few trusted people. It's an incredibly intense drug, and if administered correctly, can really help.
Of course it has the potential to really fuck with someone permanently, but so does alcohol, Ozempic, etc, yet we say nothing of those.
Those folks had serious psychiatric mental issues to begin with. Then they threw tens of truckloads of hard drugs in various mixes on top of that, often for decades.
This could break even the most healthy person and tells nothing about therapeutic potential of these substances with right approach. Its like judging how healthy salt is to humans by watching some maniac consume 200g of it daily.
Ironically, many in this thread are advocating for that! Take someone with mental problems, throw a truckload of psychedelics on top. That’ll fix em gud! And, if that doesn’t work, up the dosage, or maybe do the 3000 dollar ketamine sessions twice a week to really really fix the problem.
It's not at all unusual for drugs to have effects similar to the thing they're used to treat.
The anti-emetic I needed to take for chemo (chemotherapy is literally poison, your body will quickly figure out that you're being poisoned and, despite the fact that the poison was injected into your veins, throw up to try to remove it, so, you need an anti-emetic or you'll have a bad time each session) has "Nausea, vomiting" on its list of possible side effects. It also has a long list of really nasty psyc effects, so since taking it after chemo isn't mandatory I just didn't, most people take it for a few hours or a day, I just didn't, which was not fun but to my mind the risk wasn't worth it. [Yes I'm fine now, chemotherapy works]
Even more hilariously I read a friend's Morning After pill patient info while she was busy taking it, and almost every symptoms of early pregnancy is on the side effects list - basically the only thing they're not saying you might have despite this pill is a baby. Vomiting, cramps, dizziness and headaches, bleeding, sore nipples - pretty much everything except the newborn human in nine months was on the list.
The other things that are good for PTSD though don't carry a risk of making it worse: friendship with people who understand you and don't trigger you, talking about the traumatic experience, supporting general metabolic health and brain health.
For lessening the effect of traumatizing experience, 40mg of propranolol an hour before remembering and visualizing the traumatic, under guidance of a therapist, should be the gold standard for treatment. There a lot's of researchs showing its effectiveness but for some reason it's use stays experimental. I suppose it's because there is no money to be made with an old drug cheaply available from many generic suppliers.
It is at about 7:50 in a short aside. Notice that he only says psychedelics can be dangerous if you already have PTSD and he does not recommend it.
The video seems not to say that nobody should take LSD. In fact it explains how psychedelics can help with depression if I am not totally mistaken.
(LSD is also never actually mentioned in the video. It talks more generally about psychedelics and hallucinogens.)
Can you provide a transcript or a quote to support your claim that Dr K "only says psychedelics can be dangerous if you already have PTSD"?
Here is the passage that I think is relevant to whether people should do hallucinogens. (I was mistaken earlier when I claimed the passage was about LSD specifically.)
>substances like psilocybin fracture our sense of self -- and that can be traumatic and dangerous by the way and leave people with PTSD, which is why I don't recommend you do it
It is an aside in the middle of another sentence. Here the same passage with more context (specifically, everything said from 7:10 to the end of the video):
>the focus of your mind is on "I". You are the object of your attention. [Dr K looks at the chat stream] OK? Like anxiety, yes. [Dr K stops looking at the chat stream] Then what happens -- so, when this person says, this person on the reddits says, you know, "I actually think that self-awareness is the problem," they are absolutely right because their self-awareness is their default-mode network being highly active. Then we can look at neuroscience papers, and what we discover is that substances like psilocybin fracture our sense of self -- and that can be traumatic and dangerous by the way and leave people with PTSD, which is why I don't recommend you do it -- fractures the sense of self, but when you stu -- when that sense of self gets fractured, you are no longer stuck thinking about yourself, and when you are no longer stuck thinking about yourself, this problem of over-self-awareness goes away, and people get better in terms of depression. Does that make sense?
I did in fact mishear, sorry for that. Where he says "and leave people with PTSD", I heard "in people who have PTSD".
I think people should be properly informed about the risks of LSD and should try a small dose before trying anything larger, and should have the maturity to understand what a complex or difficult trip could mean.
I'm not taking someone known as the "Healthy Gamer" seriously as an expert.
Not every channel title is a reference to the channel's creator.
He is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist.
Yes, it is a major risk. I’m unsure why people want to pretend that it isn’t. Everyone knows someone who unexpectedly changed forever for the worse bc of these drugs. It also happened to me even though I had perfect set and setting, I was traumatised by it for years, and I know if I took it again today I would still have a bad time. And yet I’ve met multiple people who have told me that the issue is that I just didn’t take enough, some even going as far as saying that I’m stuck in some kind of purgatory unless I take a heroic dose
Wildly irresponsible, many of the fans of these drugs, who seem to talk as if things like risk and responsibility are just constructs from the man trying to keep you down
> It also happened to me even though I had perfect set and setting, I was traumatised by it for years, and I know if I took it again today I would still have a bad time.
> I know if I took it again today I would still have a bad time.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe not.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience.
And again another irresponsible person comes to try and whisper in my ear “try it again”. Absolutely horrific morality
They did not do that.
Yes they literally did. I spoke on various topics, one of those being about how people try to convince me to take more drugs. Their sole response? Telling me, in effect, "maybe you won't have a bad trip next time". This cannot be interpreted in any other way than to convince me to open up to the possibility of taking such drugs again which is exactly what I am criticising.
So yes, they did do that.
> Yes they literally did
No.
One in technology should learn to not speak about things in such absolutes, we get proven silly time and time again.
It seems your LSD experience further traumatized you.
I am sorry you had a bad experience.
Now you are mocking me? Why do you want to make me take LSD again?
You are putting intent where there is not.
When someone else tried to explain that to you, you doubled down.
Note that I said: "we get proven silly time and time again". You made that statement a personal attack on you.
It fucking says "we".
This is just a perfect example of what I'm talking about about.
Your trauma has given you a particular worldview that is assigning intent or malice where there is none.
I won't return to this thread, it's not of any relevance and you're clearly worked up about this.
Peace be with you.