http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090303_psychedelica2
'Psychedelica seems the perfect name for a fish that is a wild swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes and acts in ways contrary to its brethren. So says the University of Washington’s Ted Pietsch, who is the first to describe the new species in the scientific literature and thus the one to pick the name.
Psychedelica is perhaps even more apt given the cockamamie way the fish swim, some with so little apparent control they look drunk.
Members of Histiophryne psychedelica don’t so much swim as hop. Each time they strike the seafloor they use their fins to push off and they expel water from tiny gill openings on their sides to jettison themselves forward. With tails curled tightly to one side – which limits their ability to steer – they look like inflated rubber balls bouncing hither and thither.
While other frogfish and similar species are known to jettison themselves up off the bottom before they begin swimming, none have been seen hopping, according to Pietsch. It’s just one of the behaviors of H. psychedelica unseen in any other fish, added the researcher, lead author of a paper on the new species in Copeia, the journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. ' [...]
Distribution of Alkaloids in Some Western Australian Plants
T. E. H. Aplin and J. R. Cannon
Economic Botany, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1971), pp. 366-380
But there was also this: Ochrosia poweri
Alkaloids of Ochrosia poweri Bailey. II. The 2-acylindole stem-bark bases
B Douglas, JL Kirkpatrick, BP Moore and JA Weisbach
Abstract
Stem-bark of Ochrosia poweri Bailey furnished isoreserpiline, elliptamine, and three new indole alkaloids, ochropamine (C22H26O3N2), ochropine (C23H28O4N2), and powerchrine (C22H26O3N2). Ochropamine and ochropine are 2-acylindole derivatives closely related to the alkaloid vobasine. Their structures have been assigned as (XVI) and (XVII), respectively, by means of a combination of chemical and spectroscopic techniques.
Australian Journal of Chemistry 17(2) 246 - 255 http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/CH9640246.htm
Also known as Neisosperma poweri http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/...sosperma~poweri
Very interesting
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/87/i10/8710notw8.html
'CALTECH CHEMISTS have solved the chemical mystery of why nicotine binds to acetylcholine receptors with high affinity in the brain but with low affinity in muscles. Such information will help researchers understand nicotine addiction and guide drug discovery efforts for diseases in which acetylcholine receptors are implicated, such as schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease, among many others.
More than a decade ago, Caltech chemist Dennis A. Dougherty and coworkers discovered that acetylcholine binds tightly to its receptors because of a cation-π interaction between a positively charged nitrogen in the ligand and the aromatic ring of a specific tryptophan in the receptor. Dougherty thought that nicotine would bind in a similar way because many acetylcholine receptors bind nicotine, but nicotine did not form a cation-π interaction with the muscle cell receptors Dougherty was studying.
"If the acetylcholine receptor of the neuromuscular junction were as sensitive to nicotine as the brain receptor, you couldn't smoke," Dougherty says. "Nicotine would just be a toxin."
Dougherty, Caltech neurobiologist Henry A. Lester, and coworkers now show that nicotine binding to acetylcholine receptors in the brain does involve a cation-π interaction (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature07768). They dissect the binding interaction by substituting fluorinated amino acid analogs in the binding site.
The difference in the binding behavior of nicotine in brain versus muscle receptors suggests that the molecule is located closer to the key tryptophan residue in brain receptors than that in muscle receptors. Because the binding site—known as the "aromatic box" because it consists of five aromatic amino acids arranged in the shape of a box with the lid removed—is the same in all acetylcholine receptors, Dougherty hypothesized that the key difference must be outside the binding site.' [...]
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/87/i07/8707news6.html
Receptor's Binding Partner Identified
'A hallucinogenic compound found in psychoactive snuffs and sacramental teas used in native shamanic rituals in South America has helped elucidate the role of a receptor found throughout the nervous system. The sigma-1 receptor was known to bind many synthetic compounds, and it was originally mischaracterized as a receptor for opioid drugs. But its real role in the body remains unknown. However, Arnold E. Ruoho of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues have now solved one part of the mystery: They have discovered that the receptor's endogenous ligand is N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) (Science 2009, 323, 934).
DMT is not only found in hallucinogenic teas and snuffs but is also produced by enzymes in the body. It's been detected in human urine, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid; in the mammalian lung; and in rodent brains. At least in rodents, DMT levels rise in stressful conditions. Ruoho's group found that DMT inhibits voltage-gated sodium ion channel activity when it binds to sigma-1 receptors on cells.'
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-scienc...ed-r-2009-02-09
'Fellas, you might want to think, well, twice about following Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps' lead. A study published today in the journal Cancer linked frequent marijuana use to the possibility of a slim increased risk of testicular cancer.
Researchers from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found that about 72 percent of 369 men, ages 18 to 44, diagnosed with this type of cancer reported having smoked pot; those at greatest risk appeared to have started toking before they were 18 and/or were heavy users. But the scientists acknowledge the study did not prove a connection between pot and a heightened risk of the disease, which strikes about 8,000 men in the U.S. annually and has a high survival rate, according to the American Cancer Society. The percentage of healthy men who reported having smoked pot at least once–68 percent of a 979 randomly sampled group–is not much lower than the group who had already been diagnosed with testicular cancer.' [...]
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-scienc...effe-2009-01-28
'The glut of antidepressant drugs on the market and the ads for them may have you – not to mention doctors -- wondering how to tell one from the other. But a new study sheds light on which ones may be most effective in battling the blues.
Topping the list of a dozen prescription antidepressants reviewed: Zoloft and Lexapro. Patients taking those drugs in trials were also the least likely to drop out. But because Zoloft, made by New York-based Pfizer, is now off patent and available in relatively cheap, generic form, it may be the better choice for patients starting antidepressant therapy, write authors of the study published today in The Lancet, who are from Italy, Greece, England and Japan.
The scientists reviewed 117 randomized, trials – testing "new generation" meds called serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that enhance the effect of that brain chemical conducted between 1991 and 2007. The trials involved nearly 26,000 people, two-thirds of them women. Their findings: eight to 69 percent of patients in the trials responded to Zoloft and 51 percent to 69 percent of them responded to Lexapro, which is made by Forest Pharmaceuticals in New York. (The study of Zoloft with an 8 percent response rate was small and unusual; most studies showed more than a 50 percent response.)
Reboxetine, a Pfizer antidepressant not approved for use in the U.S., was the least effective, with 49 percent to 56 percent responding to it, according to the analysis.' [...]
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1643...ref=online-news
'A herbalist wandering into a room full of scientists would likely get a mixed reception. But new research could have put plants firmly back in the drug business.
Scientists in the US have engineered plant cells to churn out several chemical compounds that organic chemists could only ever dreamt of getting bacteria and yeast to make. The plant-produced compounds include molecules similar to cancer drugs.
This breakthrough marks the first time genetic engineers have coaxed plants into creating chemicals they do not naturally make, besides proteins. Previous efforts, such as vitamin A-producing golden rice, merely cranked up the levels of existing compounds.
Morphine, some cancer drugs, and the malaria medicine artemesin, already come from plant extracts. Countless other drugs originated in plants before scientists learned how to make them in the laboratory.
"Plants already make compounds for us," says Sarah O'Connor, a biochemist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The question is can we try to manipulate those pathways a little bit to get them to make variations on some of those compounds."' [...]
http://blogs.reuters.com/oddly-enough/2008...saint-nicotine/
[...] 'A Zimbabwean man sells cigarettes and Christmas hats on the streets of the capital Harare December 25, 2008.'
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081207_brain1
'He althy people should have the right to boost their brains with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive kids or memory-impaired older folks, several scientists contend in a provocative commentary.
College students are already illegally taking prescription stimulants like Ritalin to help them study, and dema nd for such drugs is likely to grow elsewhere, they say.
“We should welcome new methods of improving our bra in function,” and doing it with pills is no more morally objectionable than eating right or getting a good night’s sleep, these experts wrote in an opinion piece published online Sunday by the journal Nature.
The commentary calls for more research and a variety of steps for managing the risks.
As more effective brain-boosting pills are developed, demand for them is likely to grow among middle-aged people who want youthful memory powers and multitasking workers who need to keep track of multiple demands, said one commentary author, brain scientist Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Almost everybody is going to want to use it,” said Farah.
“I would be the first in line if safe and effective drugs were developed that trum ped caffeine,” another author, Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, declared in an e-mail.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leishmaniasis
'The compound vasicine (peganine), found in the plant Peganum harmala, has been tested in vitro against the promastigote stage of Leishmania donovani, the causative agent of visceral leishmaniasis. It was shown that this compound induces apoptosis in Leishmania promastigotes. "Peganine hydrochloride dihydrate, besides being safe, was found to induce apoptosis in both the stages of L. donovani via loss of mitochondrial transmembrane potential."[1]
Another alkaloid harmine found in Peganum harmala, ". . .because of its appreciable efficacy in destroying intracellular parasites as well as non-hepatotoxic and non-nephrotoxic nature, harmine, in the vesicular forms, may be considered for clinical application in humans."[2]
[1] Misra P. et al. (2008). "Antileishmanial activity mediated by apoptosis and structure-based target study of peganine hydrochloride dihydrate: an approach for rational drug design.". Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 62 (5): 998-1002. doi:10.1093/jac/dkn319
[2] Lala S. et al. (2004). "Harmine: evaluation of its antileishmanial properties in various vesicular delivery systems.". Journal of Drug Targeting 12 (3): 165-75. doi:10.1080/10611860410001712696' [...]
http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/edison/index.html
'"At Menlo Park one cold winter night there came into the laboratory a strange man in a most pitiful condition. He was nearly frozen, and he asked if he might sit by the stove. In a few moments he asked for the head man, and I was brought forward. He had a head of abnormal size, with highly intellectual features and a very small and emaciated body. He said he was suffering very much, and asked if I had any morphine. As I had about everything in chemistry that could be bought, I told him I had. He requested that I give him some, so I got the morphine sulphate. He poured out enough to kill two men, when I told him that we didn't keep a hotel for suicides, and he had better cut the quantity down. He then bared his legs and arms, and they were literally pitted with scars, due to the use of hypodermic syringes. He said he had taken it for years, and it required a big dose to have any effect. I let him go ahead. In a short while he seemed like another man and began to tell stories, and there were about fifty of us who sat around listening until morning. He was a man of great intelligence and education. He said he was a Jew, but there was no distinctive feature to verify this assertion. He continued to stay around until he finished every combination of morphine with an acid that I had, probably ten ounces all told. Then he asked if he could have strychnine. I had an ounce of the sulphate. He took enough to kill a horse, and asserted it had as good an effect as morphine. When this was gone, the only thing I had left was a chunk of crude opium, perhaps two or three pounds. He chewed this up and disappeared. I was greatly disappointed, because I would have laid in another stock of morphine to keep him at the laboratory. About a week afterward he was found dead in a barn at Perth Amboy."'
http://blogs.reuters.com/oddly-enough/2008...-joint-is-this/
'Dutch cities will exchange information at a “weed summit” in Almere, November 21, 2008.
Blog Guy, The Dutch take a very liberal approach to marijuana use. You can buy marijuana in coffee shops over there. How is that going for them?
Well, they’re having a “weed summit” this weekend to discuss that very thing. I got a copy of the working agenda. It’s still secret, so don’t share it with anybody:
8 a.m. Stop by a “coffee shop” for “breakfast.”
9 a.m. Try to remember what we’re doing here. Did anybody write it down?
9:15 a.m. Three-hour snack time.
1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Hold our ears and dance in those clunky wooden shoes we wear.
2 p.m. Try to decide if we live in The Netherlands or Holland or “That Dutch Place.”
3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Unless we can remember what we’re supposed to be doing, it’s back to the old “coffee shop.”
So you think the “weed summit” will be worthwhile, Blog Guy?
What summit?'
http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/over-36-...rug-mule_20294/
'A surfboard that had been hollowed out, packed with bricks of marijuana then glued back together was found by Border Patrol agents Wednesday while patrolling a beach in close proximity to the international border fence in Imperial Beach, California.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that the discarded board -- really just a fiberglass shell -- was filled with more than 36 pounds of marijuana and would have bore a street value of just under $30,000.
No one was taken into custody and the seized drugs were surrendered to the appropriate authorities.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=ballot...abortion-limits
'In addition to electing Barack Obama president and carrying a wave of Dems to victory in Congress, voters in several states approved ballot initiatives decriminalizing marijuana, lifting limits on embryonic stem cell research, allowing doctor-assisted suicide—and nixed others that would have restricted abortions and provided rebates for fuel-efficient vehicles
In Massachusetts voters okayed a measure to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of marijuana. The new law, set to take effect in 30 days, requires anyone caught with that amount of weed to pay a $100 civil fine.
Michigan, meanwhile, became the 13th state to allow patients with an Rx to use pot to treat pain and nausea caused by cancer and other diseases.
"Tonight's results represent a sea change," Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a group working to decriminalize pot, declared when the votes were tallied. "Voters have spectacularly rejected eight years of the most intense government war on marijuana since the days of Reefer Madness (a 1936 propaganda film designed to scare teens out of using marijuana by depicting pot smokers as a bunch of deranged lunatics, which, decades later, became a cult hit).' [...]
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=what-i...on-drug-lawsuit
'In the spring of 2000, a professional guitarist named Diana Levine, then in her 50s, sought treatment for a migraine headache at a clinic in Vermont. She usually received the drug Demerol for pain relief, along with an injection of Wyeth’s anti-nausea drug Phenergan in the muscles of her butt to relieve the nausea that usually accompanies migraines. But this time the physician’s assistant used an alternative method for administering Phenergan approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In the method, called intravenous push, the drug is injected directly into a vein in the arm.
The physician’s assistant, however, missed Levine’s vein and accidentally injected Phenergan into her artery. Over the next few weeks, Levine experienced excruciating pain. Her hand and forearm turned black with infection, and both had to be amputated later.
Levine sued Wyeth for failing to warn her about the gangrene risk associated with IV push, and a Vermont jury ordered the drugmaker pay $6.7 million in damages. But Wyeth had, in fact, disclosed the risk of intra-arterial injection on their FDA-approved label, so they appealed. The Vermont Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling in 2006. This week, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the case.
Suddenly, everyone within earshot of a trial lawyer is talking about "pre-emption," which is the legal issue at stake in the case. It's already generated a lot of coverage and buzz, and is being watched closely by lawyers and advocates who say it could dramatically change the drug lawsuit landscape. Similar cases are working their ways through other courts, including one in New Jersey involving Merck and Vioxx. You'll recall that people who took Vioxx -- a painkiller now off the market -- are suing Merck because studies later showed that it doubled the risk of heart attacks. Some are even speculating about what a new president and Congress will be able to do about the eventual ruling.' [...]
http://environment.newscientist.com/channe...line-news_rss20
'A fungus that can convert plant waste directly into diesel could allow us to generate biofuel without sacrificing food production.
The fungus was discovered in leaves of the ulmo tree (Eucryphia cordifolia) which grows in Patagonia. It makes the diesel as a vapour, much easier than liquid fuel to extract, purify and store.
“There’s no other known organism on the planet that does this,” says Gary Strobel of Montana State University in Bozeman, US, who discovered the fungus. “I would guess the gas mixture itself would be adequate to run an engine.”
Strobel identified the diesel vapours in Gliocladium roseum, an endophyte – a fungus that lives in between plant cells. He established that the fungus produces the vapours to kill off other fungi.
Analysis of the vapour showed it to be rich in hydrocarbons found in diesel, such as octane. Additionally, he identified low-molecular-weight alcohols and esters that together burn much more cleanly and efficiently than ordinary diesel. The high content of pure hydrocarbons means that it burns better than bioethanol produced from sugar cane, for example, which contains oxygen atoms and so stores less energy than hydrocarbons.' [...]
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...81030194234.htm
'Molecular cell biologist Pankaj Dhonukshe from Utrecht University has succeeded in growing roots on plants at places where normally leaves would grow. This important step in plant modification can be highly beneficial for improving crop yields and efficiency in agriculture.
This research was largely carried out in collaboration between Utrecht University (The Netherlands) and Ghent University (Belgium) with help from scientists in Japan, USA and Switzerland. The results of this research appeared as an advance online publication of the weekly science journal Nature on 26 October 2008.
The plant hormone auxin plays a crucial role in coordination of stem cells and organ formation in plants. It promotes the formation of roots from stem cells and coordinates the growth of leaves and fruits. Auxin is produced mainly in young leaves, or shoots, and is then transported from one cell to the next towards the basal region of plant ultimately leading towards root formation.
Pankaj Dhonukshe discovered a molecular switch to alter the auxin transport. By turning on the switch, Dhonukshe was able to reduce the extent of auxin transport towards the roots. The hormone then began to accumulate at the places in the young leaves where it is produced and roots began to emerge here where normally leaves would grow.' [...]
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=narcotics-recovery-farm
'From 1935 to 1975, just about everyone busted for drugs in the U.S. was sent to the United States Narcotic Farm outside Lexington, Ky. Equal parts federal prison, treatment center, research laboratory and farm, this controversial institution was designed not only to rehabilitate addicts, but to discover a cure for drug addiction.
Now a new documentary, The Narcotic Farm, reveals the lost world of this institution, based on rare film footage, numerous documents, dozens of interviews of former staff, inmates and volunteer patients, and more than 2,000 photographs unearthed from archives across the country. Premiering October 26 on public television in Philadelphia and Salisbury, Md., the film will appear on public television stations across the country throughout November. A book accompanying the documentary includes rare and previously unpublished pictures of "Narco," as the institution was called locally, a selection of which can be seen in this slide show.' [...]
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...81020093410.htm
'A new study led by North Carolina State University's Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick is the first to show physical evidence that the people who colonized the Caribbean from South America brought with them heirloom drug paraphernalia that had been passed down from generation to generation as the colonists traveled through the islands.
The research team used a dating technique called luminescence to determine the age of several artifacts found on the Caribbean island of Carriacou, in the West Indies, and discovered that the items dated back to between roughly 400 and 100 B.C. These dates are well before Carriacou was colonized in approximately A.D. 400. Luminescence testing involves heating a substance and measuring the amount of light it gives off to determine how long ago it was last heated.' [...]
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...81015073938.htm
'Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggests a possible role for nicotine in breast tumor development and metastases.
The study, conducted by researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is among the first to explore the effects of nicotine on mammary cells.
"Although numerous studies indicate the role of nicotine exposure in tumor promotion, little is known about the effect of nicotine on breast tumor development, especially on the metastatic process of breast cancer," said lead author Chang Yan Chen, Ph.D., M.D., at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Through a series of in vitro tests Chen and her team of researchers determined that breast epithelial-like MCF10A cells and cancerous MCF7 cells both express several subunits of nAChR (nicotine receptor), that when bound, initiate a signaling process, potentially increasing cell growth and migration.
"The best known role of nAChR is in the nerve system," Chen said. "Although cells from various tissue origins express different subunits of nAChR, we know very little about the functions of nAChR in non-neuronal cells and tissues, in particular in mammary cells."
"We were able to determine that mammary cells express different subunits of nAChR and that nicotine, possibly through perturbing cell cycle checkpoints, potentiates tumorigenesis in mammary cancer-prone or cancer cells," Chen said.
In vivo studies confirmed these findings. When injected into the tail of a mouse the cancerous MCF7 cells migrated to the lungs.' [...]
