Auxin

"Xylene and toluene are as dangerous, or more so, than benzene." Ok, I wasnt gonna post anything on this topic because of the fringes of legality thing but I had to respond to this. Toxicity of aromatic hydrocarbon series: Benzene > Toluene > 'Xylene' Toluene replaced benzene because 1) its much less toxic than benzene 2) its less volatile than benzene. 'Xylene' is even less volatile than toluene (note 'xylene' is actually a mixture of the three isomers of xylene.) Benzene is classified as 'highly toxic' TLV 10 ppm, Toluene and xylene are both listed as 'toxic' TLV 100 ppm. That means benzene is toxic in one tenth the concentration of toluene. Benzene bp 80.1 C Toluene bp 110.7 C 'Xylene' bp 135-145 C Thats why they sell toluene in hardware stores, but not benzene. Thats why chem labs replace benzene with toluene whenever possible. Thats why college chem labs have gallons of toluene, but only rarely have ANY benzene. Thats why while I will spill toluene all over my hands without too much paranoia, I will only use benzene in a fumehood with nitrile gloves and a lab apron.

Compassionate, but not terrably effective if you ask me. If I was addicted to heroin and wanted off I'd make 'em give me nalorphine! If I survived the treatment the addiction would be history in a week. [Note- nalorphine is a potent narcotic antagonist. If your high on opiates the stuff will make you sober in one minute flat, if your addicted to opiates it will plunge you instantly into deep, deep withdrawls.]

Kind of weak research. Small scale, short term, not enough data. But they are right, the less processing and additives tobacco has, the more nicotine. Ive been smoking for a decade and when I smoked my first batch of home-grown tobacco the nicotine content was high enough that the stuff got me high! It would probably send a non-smoker to the hospital, gotta be careful with that stuff (my heart goes out to all you aussies that arent allowed to grow tobacco.)

Apigenin? Lets see, Its full name is 4',5,7-Trihydroxyflavone. I know its anxiolytic at 10mg/kg and sedative at 30-100mg/kg and has many other effects (you'll be preventing cancer, radiation poisoning, and all kinds of stuff. Just dont overdo it.) ( check the phytochemistry database HERE ) Its in many plants, but I dont have quantitative data on any of them. I do know that before the chemical manufacturers started making it from scratch they prepared it by boiling apiin with aqueous acid (not sulfuric or nitric odviously), and purifying the apigenin out of the resulting aqueous acid/sugar/apiin mix. They extracted the apiin from Celery (plant contains 2,000 ppm, one kilo of celery has enough apiin (2g) to produce 0.957g apigenin assuming 100% yield at every step) and it was also extracted from Parsley seed. Apiin is soluble in hot water, hot alcohol, sodium carbonate solutions, ammonium hydroxide solutions, and dilute sodium hydroxide solutions (dissolved in the weak bases it makes a yellow solution and dissolved in sodium hydroxide it makes a pale yellow solution). You precipitate it from basic solution by making it neutral to moderatly acidic and cooling. Apigenin itself is almost insoluble in water, moderatly soluble in hot alcohol, and its soluble in dilute sodium (or potassium) hydroxide solution with intense yellow color being produced. Hmmm, a legal anti-tumor anxiolytic from celery. I never thought of that! Celery is cheap and the chemistry is simple, might be worth a try. I couldnt find any quantitative data for apigenin in chamomile, but I do know it has apigenin as well as various apigenin glycosides including apiin. So if you try extracting it from chamomile do the process for extracting and converting apiin to apigenin and you'll end up with the original free apigenin and the apigenin liberated from the apigenin glycosides. And if you do try purified apigenin as an anxiolytic dont forget to post your results As far as other flavanoids go, most are soluble in dilute sodium hydroxide generally forming a yellow solution. HESPERIDIN is also a anxiolytic flavanoid. Theres lots in lemon pericarp (68,800 ppm), orange pericarp (63,500 ppm), hyssop plant (50,000-60,000 ppm) Its also analgesic, antiinflamatory, antiviral, antioxidant, antiulcer, and a few bad things too. You have to be careful when purifying hesperidin because it is a glycoside. It should be precipitated from dilute alkali solutions by bringing it to pH 6-7, NOT TOO MUCH LOWER. 0.02g dissolves in 100ml hot water, 0.5g dissolves in 100ml alcohol, freely soluble in dilute alkalies. There are two US patents on its extraction, they are US patent numbers 2421061 and 2442110. Note- flavanoid extracts from citrus will also contain naringin, which could water down or alter the effects of hesperidin. [This message has been edited by Auxin (edited 29 November 2002).]

I dont think you'll want to buy apigenin, Sigma (one of the major chemical suppliers) charges $140.10 USD for 100mg of 95% pure apigenin. Its probably cheapest by far to make your own.

You must be talkin' about the philosophers stone/immortality aspect, right? I do know that at no time when humans were actally successful in turning mercury into gold were solanaceous plants involved (yes, as of the 1950s transmutation of mercury into gold was no longer fiction, of course synthetic gold still costs a million times more to produce than natural gold- there goes one childhood dream).

I'm mainly going from memory here, but from what I remember it is supposed to be easy to grow. The roots should be two years old before harvest and at that point I think it can be propagated by division of the root system, ie harvest half the roots and still turn one plant into two. And you could always try taking cuttings one month prior to harvesting roots. Glycyrrhizin is the stuff that makes it sweet (glycyrrhizin itself is 50 times sweeter than sugar) it also has goodies like flavanoids. Actions: anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritic, tonic cerebral cortex stimulant, lowers blood cholesterol, soothes gastric mucous membranes, possibly anti-allergenic, exporiant, cooling. Avoid it if you have high blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, or if your on digoxin-based drugs. You can find more data HERE

"Is it really a precursor? I thought only GBL was." Yup, its a precursor. Lots of things are: GBL, tetrahydrofuran, 1,4-dihydroxybutane, 4-bromobutanoic acid, 4-bromobutanal, etc, etc, etc... Given some time I could figure out a method that uses green apples as the precursor. The histeria over precursors has gotten so severe over here that if you buy more than the 'usual' quantity of ice the cops follow you home!

The article doesnt go into enough detail. For all we know he shot the guys because they were war criminals and he then ate mushrooms to provide a 'insanity' defense in court. When ever a anti-drug article is that short I wonder what they left out.

""The hottest chilli in the world" is called Tepin." I grow Tepin, it is really hot but it is definatly not the hottest. Its 75,000-100,000 SHU, while caribbean red is 445,600 SHU and caribbean red isn't even the hottest. It is said one ounce of seedless Tepin can produce a detectable hotness in over 300 gallons salsa (I never tested that claim though, I generally make salsa in somewhat smaller quantities ).

"If its not illegal why not just buy from Aldrich?" Sure, you can buy from Aldrich. That is if you dont mind being given the runaround in hopes that youll give up, and then being treated like a rabid crackhead criminal when you dont, and then be reported to the authorities if you succedd (its a precursor to a illegal drug y' know.) I successfully got some plant hormones from them, and the gal on the phone didnt seem to happy about it.

Chrysin (5,7-dihydroxyflavone) has produced anxiolytic effects in rats at 1mg/kg without occurance of sedation or muscle relaxation. It also helps prevent cancer. Am I just talking to myself here? Oh well, something for the archives at least.

If your in the US consume chocolate in quantities that only provide a maximun of 0.99 grams sugar and fat. According to US food rules anything with less than one gram of sugar or fat has 0 Calories and is fat free. There are products over here made of pure fat, but because one unit dose is under a gram it can say Fat Free, 0 grams fat, 0 Calories. And people wonder why americans are getting more and more overweight By the way (you know how picky I am about details) one Calorie (aka. one food Calorie) is actually one kilocalorie (1000 calories) 1 Calorie = 1000 calories. I think this nonsense was invented by food manufacturers ('This potato chip has 25 Calories' does sound more healthy than 'This potato chip has 25000 calories' even if it means the same thing, freaky stuff!)

My idea of hesperidin extraction from orange peel. This process is for 1000 grams of grated orange peel. Combine 8 grams Ca(OH)2 (hydrated lime) or 6g CaO (lime) with 1.5 liters water and stir repeatedly (limewater serves to coagulate slime and neutralize fruit acid). Add 1000 grams grated orange peel and stir well. Let sit overnight. Adjust pH to 10.5-11.5 with ammonia solution or additional Ca(OH)2 (as much as 10-15 g). If mixture is too thick an additional 0.5 liters of water may be added. Let stand for 24-48 hrs stiring about every 6 hrs. Drain off liquid and press mush to retreive remaining liquid. Filter liquid repeatedly until clear. Acidify liquid to pH 4-6 (pH 7 is ok, just slower) with distiled white vinegar or hydrochloric acid. [if pH is 4.5-5 (best) heat to 50 C and keep it there for 15-60 min and remove from heat (speeds things up, better yield, cleaner mix)] Let stand at room temp for 24 hrs. Filter out crystals, rinse them with water, dry at room temp (20-30 C) [Optional putification (essential if you used grapefruit peel instead of orange peel {not reccomended}) Dissolve crystals in minimum amount of dilute (around 1%) ammonia solution. Filter it if there is any crud. With distiled white vinegar bring to pH 9.0-8.5. Let stand at least 24 hrs. Crystalization will be slow. Filter out crystals, rinse with water, dry at room temp.] The same basic process can be used to extract apiin from celery, just ignore any steps in brackets and reduce the original quantity of lime by about 50%.

No, I'm Not Leaving. How could you think such a thing? Just saying goodbye to all the members we are loosing. We lost 50 in the last week or two, and four of them were in the last hour! Every time I think we are going to stay above 300 members people start vanishing. What, are we not entertaining enough now that CS is gone?

One of the pots I'm growing a hot pepper in is infested with annoyingly prolific orange mushrooms. Fungicide was thuroughly applied twice but the infestation is too well established. I have to scoop out mushrooms daily to keep it from spreading to the other pots, but it is getting very tedious. I've been letting the dirt dry out most the way between waterings, but the mushrooms are too well established for that to work! I cant uproot and repot because the plant is a 5' by 5' bush that is about to go to fruit. How do I kill these bastard things without hurting the capsicum? Different fungicide? 1 inch of sand on top?

My apigenin response got long, moving it to ethnobotany forum. [This message has been edited by Auxin (edited 29 November 2002).]

I dont know just how laymanish you want it, but heres my attempt... Medical words (simplified definitions): Chronotropic- Heart rate (Positive C. effect = faster pulse, Negative C. effect = slower pulse) Inotropic- Muscular contraction strength (so positive I. effect on heart increases blood pressure, negative I. effect on heart decreases blood pressure.) Myocardium- Middle layer of heart wall (made of muscle). Now the chemistry stuff... They were mainly focusing on the effect different ibogaine derivatives had on the heart. So the indole part is responsable for heart rate, and the isoquinuclidine part is responsable for blood pressure. Now I figure when they say they introduced a -OCH3 group at R2 in the indole part what they did was turn the -OCH3 group at C-2 into a -OCH2OCH3 group. When they say methoxy that means -OCH3. In vitro means in a test tube, petri dish, whatever. Putting a -OCH3 in the indole part made a compound that lowered heart rate more than normal ibogaine. Putting a -CO2CH3 in the isoquinuclidine part makes a compound that lowers heart rate less, but decreases blood pressure more than normal ibogaine. When they said a methoxy group put on C-10 increased CNS stimulation that just means it made it a stronger stimulant. Any questions? [This message has been edited by Auxin (edited 29 November 2002).]

"Easy. Change your soil mix." Well thats easy to say. Not easy to do. The plant is a 5 foot by 5 foot hot pepper bush (not the strongest stems) in a 10 gallon pot. The thing is at least half my body weight, and its in a small room and I cant get it out without major pruning. In the future when I plant peppers in such a big pot I'll add some vermiculite or sand ( HEAVY ). Anyway, I think I'm getting it under control. I used more fungicide, scraped off some dirt, applied sulfur dust, and I'm 'spoon-feeding' it water from the bottom of the pot just enough to keep the pepper from wilting. [This message has been edited by Auxin (edited 29 November 2002).]

"the major role of cholesterol in heart disease & cancer is as the body's repair substance & cholesterol is a major support molocule for the immune system, an important antioxidant & a necessary componant of neurotransmitter receptors" Yeah, cholesterol is essential for a healthy human. What that DOESN'T say is that you dont have to ingest any, your liver manufactures all the cholesterol your body needs. If you ingest cholesterol it can bring you up to harmful levels.

"Mitragynine is a pretty large molecule, so the acetate part would only account for a small percentage of the weight - lets say max 20%." Making the acetate from the freebase increases the weight 15%. 5g would turn into 5.75g. Yeah, I know: picky, picky

"Have you got the really super hot chillie seeds?" Some of 'em. As far as REALLY HOT ones go I've got Fatalii hot pepper (tastes like the name indicates it should), Caribbean Red (much hotter than habanero it ranks right up there with red savina (red savina is usually the one labled 'hottest in the world' I tried growing them but they died from a combo of fungus and fungus gnats)) And I'm starting many more for spring: Capsicum chacoense Datil (hot as habanero) Kung Pao F2 Dundicut Bulgarian carrot Atorodo Trifetti Yatsafusa Jaloro Xigole Experimental hybrids etc, etc, etc... I'm turning into a real Chile Head, can you tell?

"Have you noticed any loss or gain (or no change) on the growing rate?" No change in the affected plant, but I'm growing several delicate, slow growing seedlings and some rare SLOW germinating (5 weeks) capsicums that would be killed if it spreads. When you get 20 very small hard to find capsicum seeds with 50% viability and 5 weeks to germination the threat of mushrooms growing everywhere in addition to the normal damping off and fungus gnat threats it can make you very worried. I have a very controlled growing area and mushrooms are just an unwanted pest. Nutrient release just isnt worth it, for that I have purified ammonium humate to make bound nutrients more available and custom made fertilizers to provide any combo of additional nutrients I want.

Its not empty, there are 348 posts in here. 349 now. Where it says 'show topics from last 10 days' change that to last month or last year and you'll find some stuff.

"the mushroom would be providing nutrients by breaking down the substrate, so it may not be all bad." Even if its not hurting that plant if those things spread to some of my younger delicate plants or my germination jars it could kill them.