Comment by estimator7292
16 hours ago
It's really fucking suspicious that mushrooms evolved mechanisms to produce serotonin.
But it helps when you remember that a mushroom is the fruit of a (usually) much larger organism. Then you can start applying normal fruit rules. Some want to be eaten, or picked up and moved around. Some want to keep insects from infesting the fruit. Others don't give a damn and release spores into the wind or water.
Also remember that nicotine is an insecticide. Insects that nibble on tobacco die, which prevents infestation at scale. (Un?)fortunately it's also neuroactive in apes, so we farm incredible quantities of tobacco to extract its poisons.
There is no logic in evolution at large scales. Things happen, sometimes there's fourth order effects like some oddball internal hormone causing wild hallucinations in apes. It's all random optimization for small scale problems that ripple out to unintended large scale consequences.
BTW, Caffeine is also a naturally occurring insecticide, yet humans tend to repurpose and hack things.
Some argue that THC in cannabis actually works similarly because when herbivores regularly ingest it, they become lethargic and lazy, causing them struggle to survive in the world. Kinda like my roommate.
Ibotenic acid, muscarine, psilocybin, amanitin, muscimol, THC, caffeine - these all natural pesticides target bugs primarily. Which are the biggest threat. Sort of funny how it also affects people though
I thought it wasn’t generally psychoactive until heated?
But cannabis the needs heat to convert, it’s more likely it evolved with Human influence considering the years of overlapping land races tied to our trade routes
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your last sentence reminds me of my dorm roommate in college. very standard stoner who was constantly blazing and years later i've never known a lazier dude.
It's even weirder than that. It turns out that at very low concentrations caffeine seems to have similar effects on insect neurology as it does on ours. There are some plant species whose flowers produce caffeinated nectar. Bees seem to like these flowers preferentially, and have an easier time remembering where they are. (Yes, bees get buzzed.)
There are some flowers which produce tiny amounts of caffeine in their nectar, apparently to give the pollinators a buzz.
Capsaicin as well
And birds are immune to it
Love me some Capsaicin, even though I’m not supposed too (I guess)
All spices basically too afaik.
Chilis, tobacco and tomatoes are all in the same family (nightshades). And they are all "New World" plants. Which means Europe had to live without them until 1600 or so. If you can call that living.
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The brain is a fiber network like the mycelium, likely the same genes (animals are related to mushrooms) and neurotransmitters are involved in its function.
> animals are related to mushrooms
???
Apparently in very early evolution animals and fungi shared a common ancestor. That's a pretty far cry from "related to" as its generally used.
Slightly related as mushrooms are closer to animal than to plants, as anyone in a grocery store would guess.
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It’s “alive” therefore it must have an early common ancestor and thus related… people like stretching definitions.
At some point when aliens are confirmed and if they were carbon based you might have people say earth species and alien species are “related”.
No.
It's not that suspicious- many molecules in nature are made from the same few precursors like cholesterol, amino acids, etc. and on top of that there's pressure for plants/fungi to evolve molecules similar to ones animals use in order to affect them.