Scientists solve 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine
york.ac.ukhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-72705-0 The glucose part is especially interesting: the missing step wasn't just an unknown enzyme, but a transient intermediate that basically disappears by the end Paradoxically, nicotine has some medical use in e.g. displacing viral debris and autoantibodies from nAChR (nicotinic acetylcholine receptors) due to having highest affinity to these receptors, which seems to help with (long) Covid; "smoker paradox" in lower covid-related hospitalizations. A molecule can be socially and medically associated with a very harmful delivery mechanism, while still having specific biochemical effects that are worth studying on their own. Ant that's interesting I was expecting to see a longer list of medical uses, but the wiki says that nicotine has performance impacts on cognition, improving fine motor motion and memory. The pharmacology section is sophisticated. Pairs well with https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tobacco-psychedelics-psilocybi... ! You may enjoy the original paper[0] a lot more, the simplified article is very... simple. And the implication is they can modify tomato's DNA to produce nicotine, just like Tomacco from The Simpsons. The Simpsons always predict everything. Simpsons did it! I came here to find someone saying this. I swear we are heading toward McKenna's Peak Novelty in this timeline. It would be great if they could improve upon it. I find nicotine to be an underperforming chemical, despite its popularity. A bit more of a cognitive kick would be nice. Know what I mean? I get what you mean, but "more addictive stimulant with a stronger cognitive kick" is one of those product requirements that starts to sound less appealing the longer you think about it Modafinil? Ritalin? The latter is great for tedious tasks. It's also great for totally messing up your brain chemistry and your reward wiring. Wouldn't touch it myself. I'm sure if you did it once or twice a year it'd be fine but let's be real, anyone who's willing to take it in the first place (outside of having a genuine medical reason like narcolepsy/ADHD) will want to take it a lot more than that. Besides, in the long run - measured over weeks or months - these absolutely will not give you a productivity boost anyway comparable to sorting out your sleep/exercise/diet/mental health. “1 hour, full power” is the dream. Something where I could get those last things done in the evening without disrupting my sleep. Chemically possible? Why not? Lots of drugs will get you where you’re looking to go. Going to bed and waking up an hour earlier, working immediately upon wakefulness, will keep you there. Your talking about cocaine right? Interesting that some acacia produce nicotine and dmt.. Yes but I'm just looking to be a little more focused on tedious tasks, not hang out with the machine elves. I know there's at least one nicotine analogue that's been sold. Pretty sure it's carcinogenic, but maybe there are some other options. This isn’t how drug discovery works at all. “Glucose appears to vanish” i’m sure it does, the matter just does that Glucose appears to vanish around me as well.