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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: February 27th, 2025

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  • This is an updated recommendation for how to treat headaches in the emergency department, and one of the treatments it’s replacing is opioids.

    Here is more from the article:

    The update reviewed 26 studies from the past nine years that met the criteria involving migraines and visits to emergency departments to bring the treatment recommendations up to date.

    “This update marks a major change in emergency department migraine care and implementing these treatments can improve patient outcomes and reduce reliance on opioids,” said study co-lead Dr. Jennifer Robblee, a neurologist and migraine and headache disorders specialist at Barrow Neurological Institute

    Another user added a first person perspective, which explains it a lot better than I could.




























  • Yes :)

    The new study, led by pharmaceutical microbiology researcher Dirk Hoffmeister, from Friedrich Schiller University Jena, discovered that mushrooms can make psilocybin in two different ways, using different types of enzymes. This also helped the researchers discover a new way to make psilocybin in a lab.

    Based on the work led by Hoffmeister, enzymes from two types of unrelated mushrooms under study appear to have evolved independently from each other and take different routes to create the exact same compound.

    This is a process known as convergent evolution, which means that unrelated living organisms evolve two distinct ways to produce the same trait. One example is that of caffeine, where different plants including coffee, tea, cacao, and guaraná have independently evolved the ability to produce the stimulant.

    Why this is interesting:

    This is the first time that convergent evolution has been observed in two organisms that belong to the fungal kingdom. Interestingly, the two mushrooms in question have very different lifestyles. Inocybe corydalina, also known as the greenflush fibrecap and the object of Hoffmeister’s study, grows in association with the roots of different kinds of trees. Psilocybe mushrooms, on the other hand, traditionally known as magic mushrooms, live on nutrients that they acquire by decomposing dead organic matter, such as decaying wood, grass, roots, or dung.

    The observation that mushrooms that inhabit two different niches make the same psychedelic compound raises questions regarding the ecological role of this molecule. A possible explanation as to why both mushrooms produce psilocybin could be that it is intended to deter predators, such as insects, that may be tempted to eat their fruiting bodies. This would be similar to the role of caffeine, which is also known to act as a natural pesticide, deterring insects and other pests from feeding on certain plants.