Welcome to Mind Escape. Are you ready?
Are you ready to escape your mind?
All right, folks, welcome back to Mike and Maurice's mind
escape. We have.
Let's see here Episode 299. We're we're approaching 300.
It's been a long journey with six years, a little over six
years and almost 300 episodes. And, yeah, it's been quite the
ride. But here we are, 299.
Tonight we have Bald Scientist Podcast.
Oh OK, that's not an insult. That's the name of it.
It's called the Bald Scientist. Larry David would be proud, but
the Bald Scientist Podcast and our guest tonight is Oneh Pagan.
He is a scientist and author professor and seems like a
pretty inquisitive person. I highly recommend his books.
You can check out two of them down below.
Strange Survivors is one of them, and then the other one is
stone flies or no, I'm sorry, drunk flies and stone dolphins,
which I highly recommend, especially since on the show I
preach learning philosophy and pharmacology and understanding
these compounds since we talked about them and everything.
Like no, you know what's going on, let's try and figure it out.
And and his books really do a great job of breaking it down.
And they're not super dense or over.
You know, they don't use scientific terms that are almost
impossible to understand, like a scientific paper.
So go check those out. They're on Audible too.
So if you like listening to books, go check those out for
sure. But yeah, then go check out his
podcast. Go subscribe.
The bald scientist. One word.
You can check them out on Spotify.
Apple. Yeah, I checked out a few
episodes, really loved it. So, and yeah, we're gonna, you
know, we're gonna do our thing here.
I'm getting over a little bit of a sickness, but I'm aside from
some aches and some chills and pains, I'm doing OK.
But so tonight we're gonna talk about animal pharmacology.
You know, antigen, psychedelic. I guess it's not antigen unless
they actually know what they're doing and it's religious for
them. But psychedelic psychoactive
compounds, things of that nature, stuff I've been
fascinated with for years and questions that I have and stuff
like that. So if you have a question and
you're watching on YouTube, feel free to add it to the live
stream and I will try and to get to it when I get a chance.
If you want to support mine escape, the best way to do it is
to click the link tree link down below.
Plenty ways to do it, Merch store, leave us a nice review,
you name it, it's all in there. I'm not going to go through a
whole spiel. So without further ado, welcome
on the show. Nay, how are you?
I'm fine. Thank you for having me on,
Mike. No problem.
I know we tried to set this up. I think you actually, you might
have reached out to me right after I had I'm trying to think
Bobby Azarian on a while back and we were talking Mike
Masters. Oh, Mike Masters.
OK And yeah we tried to set it up and things just, you know
didn't come together. But here we are, and I'm glad we
we are, because like I said, I really enjoy your work and
you're very the way you present things is kind of like what
Richard Feynman said, which is like, you know, what's, you
know, the intelligence or a sign of intelligence is being able to
explain something in the simplified way for everybody to
understand something along those lines.
And I think you do a great job of that in your books for sure.
So. Well, thank you so much.
That's very kind and comparing that style to finance is high
praise indeed. Thank you.
No problem, No problem. So let's just before we get into
a lot of the questions I have in the animal pharmacology and
everything, give us a little bit of your background where you're
from, how did you get into this, all that kind of stuff?
Sure. Well, thanks again for having me
and and I say hello to all your listeners out there.
My first name is Sonay. It's spelled just like the
number one in English. It has a little accent on the
The name comes from my father's name.
His name was on Esimos. That's Greek from the Bible, but
I'm Puerto Rican. Go figure.
I'm sorry. I don't look Latino.
I don't look the part. Nothing like that.
One thing that it's very characteristic of me, of me, is
that I love any and every type of science.
And there was never any doubt, ever since I was a kid that I
would end up doing something scientific.
I went to college at the University of Puerto Rico, did a
bachelor's in general sciences and started working, you know,
life intervene. I did a master's in
biochemistry, also at the University of Puerto Rico, and I
always wanted to do my PhD, but I had a family.
I needed to work. You know, the the usual things.
One fine day I was working as a technician at a medical school
in Puerto Rico and a collaborator of my supervisors
came to the medical school. He was a professor at Cornell
University. He came recruiting people and
they they invited me to apply. I did.
They interviewed me. They I got a scholarship.
And in so many words I told my wife, it's freaking Cornell.
OK, so. And then we moved to the
mainland. Our youngest son was born in
Ithaca, NY. We have three children, and
right now their ranges are almost 33 until 22.
So. But I am I am an unapologetic
nerd, science nerd. I like everything and anything
about science, and I love talking about it.
I always say that I have the best job in the world because as
a university professor, I'm expected to talk about science,
I'm expected to read about science, I'm expected to develop
my own scholarship, and the students have to listen to me.
OK. So it's it doesn't get any any
much better than that as it were.
Absolutely. Now, so when we're talking about
this animal pharmacology, like what specifically is your field
of research that you do when you teach as a professor and then
you write papers, like what specific you know, topic do you
write on? Of all things, I do biochemical
and behavioral pharmacology of flatworms, specific type of flat
flatworm called planarians. Those are the ones that you can
cut their heads off and they will not die, they will regrow,
regenerate their head. But more importantly, this
particular type of planarians, they have a relatively
sophisticated brain in the with very much the same
neurotransmitter, same type of neurons that vertebrates do and
they can regenerate fully their brains.
Imagine that if we ever learn how to do that.
For example, a person with brain damage from a car accident, some
tragedy like that or spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's, any type
of mental disease. So they know how to regenerate
their nervous system correctly. And so and in addition to that,
they display many of the behavioral and pharmacological
responses that we do upon exposure to let's say addictive
drugs like a nicotine. For instance, The ones that the
ones that I work with our freshwater planarians, If I put
nicotine in the water and I leave the nicotine there for a
while and then I take the nicotine away, they go into
withdrawal, they start shaking, they swim like crazy and many,
dare I say most of the psycho psychoactive compounds that
humans use, they have an effect on these organisms.
And so we have developed a research program that use them
as a model organisms in pharmacology, particularly
neuropharmacology. So before I even started reading
your book, I was thinking to myself, what would a psychedelic
or psychoactive experience look like on something that doesn't
have a frontal cortex or even like a full brain or something
like that? Can you?
That's kind of what we're talking about here.
What? What?
What would that be like? Well, the thing about it is that
in the case of vertebrates, they are pretty much, they have
pretty much the same type of nervous systems, a system as we
as we do. OK, So they maybe they don't
have a cortex that is as developed as we they have it,
but they do have it. But then when we go to
invertebrates, we talk, we talk about flies, we talk about again
worms, octopuses, all these type of organisms, even though they
have a brain of a very much different style from ours.
Many of the circuits, like the reward circuits for what we
interpret as pleasure or painful stimuli, they are conserved in
evolution, so that's why we can use them as models for that.
So of course I like joking with my students that I don't even
know what I'm thinking. Half of the time I cannot tell
what other people are thinking, let alone an Organism of which
to which I cannot communicate. So we have to study those by
observing behavior, which can be a representation of whatever
mental states they have. Yeah, it's fascinating.
So my question, my first question is and I have a bunch
of them, so get ready. So we've talked a lot about on
the show psychedelic psychedelic therapy, usually pertaining to
humans, the five HT 2A receptor agonists, you know, your common
tryptamines and things like that.
What? Why would fungus or mushrooms
evolve to produce psilocybin? I've always heard it was to
deter bugs or insects and things like that.
But that never really seemed like a a great answer
considering some of my personal experiences from years back
involved taking these compounds and then being told or coming
out of it wanting to be a better person wanting to fix my life,
get things together take care of the earth.
There's like a very people that take this across.
You know if you're a decent person get this message like we
got to take care of the earth kind of a thing.
So do you think that there's something within the compounds
of the plants or do you think that that's our own psyche plane
off of this or like what's happening there and why do
these, why does this fungus and and even now they found
psilocybin and cicadas too why do why do they create this?
Well, without being a psychologist, I can give you a
like a a layperson's answer in in that sense.
But you're right, the current paradigm about why plants?
And thank you for talking about fungi, because everybody forgets
about fungi. Everybody thinks animals or
plants, OK, but fungi are out there and you know this as well
as I do, we are evolutionally speaking, closer to fungi than
fungi are to plants. So it's something that we have
that that in common. The current paradigm for
psychoactive substances from plants or fungi, they are
considered the first insecticides, the first
pesticides. OK.
So let's talk about for example, a cocaine plant or or a nicotine
plant. I'm sorry, tobacco plant, things
like that. The thing about it is, if you
have a small insect insect nibbling on the leaf of of a
tobacco plant, that small amount of nicotine will be very toxic
to such a small Organism. OK, but then the same amount of
nicotine when ingested by a human, a much bigger Organism,
it can get toxic over time because the higher amount of of
nicotine, of nicotine can be toxic.
Don't get me wrong, but relatively moderate amounts are
psychoactive. OK, so, and that's probably an
accident of how of the amount relative amount of substances
that are consumed by a particular Organism.
OK, so then again, there's yet another school of thought that
proposes that psychoactive substances substitute for
neurotransmitters in people that are, for example, nutritionally
deprived. Because most of these
neurotransmitters mimic what I should say, I'm sorry, Many of
these toxic substances from plants and fungi mimic
neurotransmitter systems. For example, nicotine mimics one
of the most prevalent neurotransmitter systems,
invertebrates, the acetylcholine system.
And the thing about it is that some people think that under
nutritional deprivation, of course, metabolically speaking,
the production of neurotransmitters is going to be
lower. But if a person consumes A
substance that mimics A neurotransmitter, it's like the
first nutraceuticals as it were. OK, so but there's many
hypothesis that try to explain that type of thing.
As far as why humans react in a particular way to hallucinogens
or entheogens, it's anybody's guess at some point.
And whoever tells anybody, OK, we know why.
Take that with a grain of salt, because no, not every.
I don't think anybody knows exactly what's going on.
Yeah, I mean, I wasn't trying to get too mystical.
I was just sharing my experiences and one of the
messages, a reoccurring message, has been we need to take care of
the Earth. So, and they live on the earth,
you know, so but, so while we're on this topic, what do you think
about the stoned ape hypothesis or theory?
Do you think that there's any merit to that, that humans
evolved alongside of these things in an increased any sort
of cognition or visual acuity or something like that?
Well, there we can see this in two ways.
In two ways. To a very hungry person, if you
see mushrooms, even if it's undone, OK, they're going to eat
it, right? And then if those just by
serendipity a certain type of fungi or mushroom produces A
substance that induces pleasurable sensations to a
human, they will take care of that.
They would start cultivating the same thing with pretty much any
other substances. As far as opening consciousness,
that's yet another word for which no serious scientist will
say, well, yeah, we know what consciousness is because we
really don't. And and that's another it's.
So we agree Richard Dawkins isn't a serious scientist, then
I'm joke. I'm joking.
I'm joke. I'm giving you a hard time.
No, no, no. Trust me, he's not my cup of
tea. Let's put it this way.
He. He he's a very good scientist,
and he writes very sensical about the things he knows about.
OK. He writes about the evolutionary
theory. He writes about computer
modeling of behavior. He's fantastic.
But when he goes out of his wheelhouse, well, it's just as a
layperson as you or I. Yeah, I mean, I agree from the
stuff that I've seen when he dabbles around.
But yeah, that's interesting. OK, One of the one main things
here, and this is in your book I want to talk about, is the
dolphin and puffer fish connection here.
So if anybody's seen this, you can go online.
There's dolphins that will literally grab puffer fish, kind
of like squeeze them. I don't know if they're killing
them or I'm sure they eventually die, but they're squeezing them
in their their beaks or jaws, whatever, and it's emitting some
sort of you can see it, it's like a muddy looking thing
coming out. I mean that who knows what that
that is or if that's even the thing that they're trying to get
at. But they're passing it around
like it's a football and everybody's grabbing it and
swimming around with it and they can tell that they're having an
ecstatic experience. What is the compounds that
they're they're that's doing that, number one, and do we know
when this started? OK, so a few years ago, I want
to say in 2008 or so, a documentary filmmaker was doing
like again, a documentary about a dolphin, pod and whatnot.
And when they went underwater to film them, they noticed that
behavior as you described. They take puffer fish and they
were passing it around. And according to their
observations, for all intents and purposes, the dolphins look
as if they were intoxicated. OK, so that that was one of the
a little frustrating parts to write in my book because I am
fastidious about referencing my sources.
OK, meaning that in science again you you reference papers,
you provide evidence and whatnot.
In that case, when we what we have is an anecdote, but then
it's a very interesting anecdote because the substance that it's
prevalent on puffer fish is that toxin and a particularly nasty
one. It's called tetrodotoxin.
It's actually widespread in nature.
Blue ring octopuses. They have it.
Oh, that's what the puffer fishes.
I mean, I know the blue ring octopus is is a definitely a
venomous octopus. Absolutely, absolutely.
And that that toxin has has no antidote.
OK, so that's it's a paralytic toxin.
It's really nasty, but but it can cause psychoactive effects
in some people because it has some usefulness as certain
therapies. They're trying to develop into
that. There's a couple of things at a
first, as a first approximation, we would assume that the nervous
system of of dolphins is very similar to ours and whatnot, for
a variety of reasons, but it's not out of the realm of
possibility that they have certain differences that
tetrodotoxin. First, don't doesn't kill them
because they are huge organisms compared to to us and that they
have certain differences in the receptors, particular nerve
cells or or whatnot that induces psychoactive responses.
And every month or so I do a literature search to search to
see if somebody has figured that out.
But that's such an interesting topic and such a really good
observation that induces further research.
So, but but then again it's frustrating because I want to
know more, as it were. Yeah I mean it's you added this
in your book and I'm happy you did you add like a little bit of
ancient context and and and where these ideas come from
which I'm huge on origin stories and trying to figure out where
the origins of these things are. But you, you know you talk about
Paracelsus dose makes the poison, which is kind of what
you're talking about here like something our size, you know
this thing might kill you obviously, but something a
little bit bigger maybe with a little bit more neurodiversity
can withstand whatever this thing is and causes a big punch
there. Another thing, kind of since
we're on the ocean, I don't know if you're familiar with the
show, it was on Vice for a few years.
It's called Hamilton's Pharmacopeia with Hamilton
Morris. You should definitely, you
should definitely check it out. It's all about psychedelics, but
there's a lot of stuff in there I think that you would get a
enjoyment out of. But there's an episode on Fish
Inebriation where he goes to Reunion Island I believe.
And they they eat fish heads in this like Stew and something
with these fish. It's called fish inebriation.
Something I don't know how to pronounce it it Theo toxin or
something. I forget how to pronounce it's
but they eat these fish heads and it causes like sleep
paralysis and hallucinations and all sorts of stuff.
And the the the locals there that's part of their like
tradition. Like it's like a Sunday night
dinner. But he goes there and tries this
thing and he's trying to speculate like what could be
causing these effects like water and and the only thing he could
think of is the fish because they were eating like parrotfish
and some other kind of fish that the fish are maybe eating some
sort of coral or sea, you know, flora that's causing some sort
of, you know. Actually, that that's very
interesting and really logical because many animals can produce
psychoactive substances. Think about all the different
types of frogs and tots that are psychoactive.
OK, so I didn't know that particular case, but I'm gonna
take a look at it because it's it's super interesting.
Thank you. I'll send you the link it's but
I highly recommend the show because he he's like a chemist
nerd too and he everything has to do with psychedelics but he's
trying to investigate kind of like how you are with animals
but he does it with like humans and stuff like that.
So so yeah that one's fascinating.
The other question would be you just mentioned frogs and toads.
So we know 5 Meo comes out of Bufo Alvaris.
Now, what would cause that specific toad to create that
compound versus, let's say, BUFO from a different region that has
a little bit of a different environment?
As you well mentioned before, it could be a dietary thing.
Maybe they are ingesting a particular type of insects that
which are the ones that produce that particular compound or
maybe can be a product of their own metabolism.
So that that's there's a whole field of chemical ecology in
which it's. I'm not an expert in that by by
any means, but it's a really huge field in which people study
chemical warfare in organisms, plant, animal and fungi.
And it's fascinating because that goes to a very you
mentioned Richard Dawkins before the idea of evolutionary arms
races in the sense that they get some organisms can produce a
certain type of toxin, then they the prey is going to become
resistant, but then the original Organism becomes more poisonous
and and so on and so forth until we can get incredibly poisonous,
let's say salamanders and incredibly resistant to poison
Garter snakes. This is an actual example, one
of the first that was described in evolutionary arm races.
Yeah, that's that's kind of interesting.
Yeah. I used to head my bouts with
gardener snakes back in the day. Definitely gotten bit by a few
of those. Let's see here.
Oh, I wanted to ask you. So in October, maybe it was last
October, I got bit by a spider on my ankle and I'm trying to
figure out what it is. I end up catching these things
in these glue traps. There's like a bunch of them and
they're only kind of spiders in my basement.
So it's the only thing that could have really bitten me.
And I looked it up. It's a broad face sack spider
and I looked it up, my leg got like super infected.
It looks like even it took like 3 months to heal.
You would have thought I got bit by like a Black Widow or a
tarantula or a brown recluse or whatever.
And so I looked it up. It says that they eat other
toxic bugs like centipedes and everything.
That creates some sort of cytotoxin and then it creates A
secondary infection in humans. So like, what other is that?
Like a common thing for venomous animals to to get their defenses
from things that they eat and then.
Oh, you're gonna love, you're gonna.
Love what I'm going to tell you, OK?
There are certain types of, I want to say, sea slugs.
I'm not entirely sure of the particular species, but you know
that, for example, jellyfish unrelated organisms, they they
they stink, OK. They have specialized cells that
have little sacks of venoms of venom and they are like little
darts. OK, that that's why they're they
stink. But this particular sea here, So
I want to say if I'm mistaken, please forgive me.
They not only eat certain types of jellyfish, they don't get
stung. And to add insult to injury,
they can install their the cells, the cell, the venomous
sucks with cells on their own skin.
And they can steal that particular weaponry from
jellyfish. Unrelated organisms.
So now. Is that like those Blue Angels?
See, I see these people. Like it says this is the most
venomous, tiny thing. And then there's people holding
a bunch of them in their hand, like, what are you doing?
I think. They're related.
I think they're related to them but then the the really cool
thing about it is that those cells in jellyfish, they they
are they they have a hair like trigger.
OK, so you don't need it. You don't need to annoy the
jellyfish. I'm sorry, get enthusiastic and
my accent gets thicker, the jellyfish.
We're hearing you loud and clear.
You're good. Just keep going.
OK, so you only need to to touch it to get stung.
So how are they able to capture those cells without triggering
it? So I'm, I'm betting that it's
something pharmacological that they stop their particular
mechanism of fighting, for lack of a better word, something like
that. And there's many organisms that
do that. There's for example, certain
types of, well, they call it rats, but they are more like
weird skunks in Africa. One of the things that they do
is that they take, for example, toxic plants.
They chew on it, and they caught themselves with the chute toxin
secretion of the plant. OK, so how can that evolve?
Who was the which was the first animal who thought about it and
then survived? So I'm fascinated by those
things. Yeah, 100%.
No, I I love this conversation. Like I said, I I knew when you
sent me your book, I think you sent me like APDFA while back,
and I look started looking at it.
I'm like, I'll just 'cause I do a lot of audiobooks too, like
while I'm working and stuff like that.
And yeah, I I love what you're doing and I love your
fascination. I think that complexity science
and kind of going across boundaries too, and applying
what you know about whether it's planarians or whatever, and
incorporating that into other topics.
I think we need more of that, 'cause I think that that's why
people get frustrated with, and probably, and maybe you could
speak to this, but it seems like there's a lot of frustrated
scientists online and stuff, and they fight with a lot of people.
They're get aggravated about people asking what are
considered dumb questions or what.
Maybe that's just the person or whatever.
But it seems like when you get too deep into your own rabbit
hole as a scientist, it's it's, you know, it gets a little
monotonous maybe, or something. I don't know.
Yeah. Well, obviously I'm biased
towards science, but one thing that that I feel very strongly,
and this sounds like a cliche, but I really mean it.
There's no dumb questions. OK?
If you don't know something, ask about it.
One thing that I think makes me gives me a specific perspective
on that is that one of my biggest courses right now it's
Biological Sciences for non majors.
I have like a big amphitheater with 250 people of majors
throughout the university, literature, education.
I don't know economics, so people who don't like science,
OK, And that's OK. Not everybody has to like what
we what we like, but that they are there just because they have
to take the course. So I have to be a performer, OK,
Because I have to make the class interesting for them.
And science, it's perfectly situated to talk about
interesting things. OK.
Some of the examples that I've given you about the organisms
that steal the weaponry, I use that in a general biology class
like that and you know, and I would like to think that I get
their attention. So then again, the this idea
that science is something that it's only the purview of a
selected few. It's stupid.
I'm sorry, but anybody interested enough in science can
learn about it, OK? That's another thing I love
about you. You seem like an amazing science
communicator, which I think that this this world lacks that.
And when we they come along, we notice, you know, like, you
know, whether you like Neil Tice, de Grasse or whatever, a
lot of people don't like him, 'cause he doesn't believe in
aliens or whatever, like what whatever you think about these
people, like he's an amazing science communicator.
You know, you'll learn more about the universe from
listening to a three hour podcast of him on Joe Rogan,
then you will probably picking up a textbook on on the matter,
you know. So there's there's something to
be said about that. And like I said, you're an
amazing science communicator. Your books are well written,
easy to understand, and I highly recommend people go check them
out. One thing I wanted to talk about
now too is kind of where all this stuff comes from.
So like we split from what octopa octopuses 500 million
years ago, roughly. I've read that paper about them
being potentially alien, but I don't, you know, I know that
there's a lot of, a lot of pushback on that, but OK, so 500
million years ago. So that means that and they've
in that paper with the MDMA, they react to MDMA, so they have
serotonin receptors. So if that's the case that means
that serotonin is at very least 500 million years old.
How old do you think serotonin is and do you think that that's
one of the first you know, receptors if you will, or you
know what do you, what would you call it, external feedback or
perception or something? Well, it can even go before from
before vertebrates because many microorganisms, bacteria like
amoebas, things like that. They do have receptors for many
types of neurotransmitters including if I'm not mistaken,
serotonin. OK.
And that's the beauty of it, that throughout evolution,
species like Co opt what allows them to survive and then it
passes on to the next generation and then down the line they can
be useful for something else and for something else and for
something else. And for entities like us, OK, we
can get our consciousness again, whatever that is stimulated by
serotonin, something that probably started as a signaling
molecule, because that's the thing.
Even bacteria OK, display behavior.
They can swim towards nutrients or away from a toxin and they
don't have anything closely reminiscent to a nervous system
and they display behavior, OK. So even though they may not be
complex in that sense, the kernel of whatever we think of
as behavior in quote UN quote higher organisms was already
there. Yeah, after I watch that
documentary. I don't know if you've seen an
Octopus teacher on Netflix. I've heard.
About it, it's in my queue. You should watch it.
But after watching that I will never eat another octopus again.
Squid now those guys are bastards.
Eat as much squid as you want. They'll drown your ass off the
coast of California. Those those where they devil or
Humboldt squid or whatever. Oh my God, yes, they they try
and drown swimmers. I don't know if you've seen
these videos. They'll come up and try and
pull. Yeah, we.
Know they are. Nasty.
Yeah, yeah. Eat your calamari.
Don't eat your octopus. So, OK, so back to this.
So like, I don't know that that paper, the MDMA paper which
which I found funny that the octopus was trying to hug the
other octopuses thing container almost like how a human would
react on MDMA to hugging each other being close, you know.
So, you know there's a lot there and you know I think that we're
a lot closer in your books. You mentioned this.
We're a lot closer to the animal world than we think we are.
It's almost like we do ourselves a disservice by making ourselves
feel separate or telling ourselves we're so much
different than other primates in the animal world or whatever.
But in reality, we're all kind of big sacks of endogenous
chemicals and nervous systems, right?
I mean, that's pretty much what it is.
Yeah, we are cells. A bunch of cells trying to
understand nature. That's it.
And and of course there's other considerations about morality,
spirituality, things like that. But science has nothing to to
say about that. Yeah, I've always said science
is really good at explaining how things work, but not good at
explaining why things work. Absolutely.
Yeah, you got it. So what else did I want?
OK, so you mentioned dinosaurs and how they found Claviseps
perpea, which is very fascinating to me.
So I don't know if you're familiar, but there's a lot of
talk about the Lucidian mysteries in ancient Greece and
its connection, and they found Ergod and claviceps and a lot of
these chalices and stuff like that.
And it grows in the area of Elusis now.
Are you, do you think it's possible that dinosaurs were
somehow, you know, getting high off this stuff?
Because I because claviceps or ergot itself is actually pretty
toxic to human beings. Like, I don't know, you should
never take that. I mean, it is a precursor for
LSD, but it's not like LSA, which you could get from like a
morning glory or a baby wood roast or something like that.
This is something that would make you convulse and throw up
and stuff like that. So it it's again it's logical
that for example if a dinosaur could get their proverbial hands
on a bunch of of the psychoactive fungus, they again,
it's hard to to say but in all likelihood their nervous system
is not much different from the nervous system of a another
reptile. OK.
So and again based on what we talked about the octopus before,
they certainly had the same type of neurotransmitters, circuits,
behaviors, all these type of things.
So and and it would be a a sight to see a big dinosaur
intoxicated. OK from a distance, let's just
say. That would be awesome.
Yeah. So OK, I mean, we're talking
about a lot of hypothetical stuff here.
I think a lot of this stuff comes down to tryptophan, right?
Isn't that the 1st important thing when it comes to breaking
down enzymes and ingesting these compounds and things of that
nature? How do we know how old
tryptophan is? Well, tryptophan is one of the
20 biologically relevant neurotransmitters.
OK, so it's been around the proverbial forever in our
planet. It's a relatively simple
compound and it's in everywhere. Anything alive contains
tryptophan, but it happens to be one of the precursors of this
line of neurotransmitters. OK, just like in the same way
other neurotransmitters are. The, I'm sorry, other amino
acids are the precursors of neurotransmitters.
For example, glutamic acid is the most prevalent
neurotransmitter in any nervous system, and it's also an amino
acid in its own right in proteins.
OK, so the same thing with many others.
So, but again what I'm trying to say is tryptophan, it's a very
basic building block of proteins and it has been Co opted as a
signaling molecule, as a precursor of a signaling
molecule I should say. Interesting.
Is there any animal or insect
that we know that gets high on their own supply, meaning that
they create something and then they also become, you know, they
become psychoactive to them from their own bodies cause like the
only reason why I ask is obviously we have proven we
produce. DMTDMT is also one of the most
psychedelic compounds you can imagine.
So is there anything in the animal or insect Kingdom that
has something similar? Not that, not to my knowledge,
not that, nothing that comes to mind, but that's a very
interesting question. Now you're making me think, and
I thank you for that. That's all we try and do here
is, you know, critically think and ask interesting questions.
And these are, this is just stuff I'm interested in.
And like I said, when I appreciate somebody's work and I
think that they do great stuff, it it inspires me too.
'cause like, you know, doing this podcast for six years, you
know, there's certain things that maybe I was interested in
five years ago, four years ago. It's no longer hitting that, you
know, hitting that zone for me. So it's I gotta branch out and.
You know, your books came along in a great time.
And yeah, it's just something I've been fascinated with.
I'm trying to get into the origins and look at like our
evolution, evolution in general. And yeah, So is there anything
you can think of that in terms of bizarre behaviors from
animals that instead of, you know, like we talked about the
dolphins, is there anything else that, you know, you want to
actually, can we talk about the drunken flies?
Let's talk about the drunken flies for a second.
Absolutely, that that's something that I got very amused
when I began to to do the research for the book.
Because going taking a step back, I began thinking about
animals and drugs based on my own experiments with planaria.
Because then I started thinking, well, what other animals can get
intoxicated and and it opened a new world for me.
I wasn't aware that there were so many.
But then The funny thing about Drosophila, it's the fruit flies
is that they, especially the male ones, when they are devoid
of female companionship. If you get my meaning, they
prefer to freedom fermented fruit as opposed to fresh fruit.
OK, so when they are prevented from interacting with females
that they do that. So and all the jokes about
drowning your sorrows when you are rejected.
It's pretty much the same thing for male Drosophila.
OK, but then for example female Drosophila.
They also preferentially lay their eggs in fermented fruit in
many cases. But in that case is just to
protect their eggs against other predators that they are, so that
it's something so fascinating that probably the very first
psychoactive drug that we get in got in touch with alcohol.
OK, it's something that, again, it didn't start with us.
It began with our animal cousins millions of years ago, and then
we can go Fast forward to the idea of the drunken monkey
hypothesis. So this is the yet another.
It's like a parallel of the Stone 8 hypothesis.
Is. Yeah.
Is that the 1:00 where they're eating fermented fruits and
become. Yeah.
OK. Exactly.
But there's a little bit more scientific evidence for that
one, as opposed to the Stone Age hypothesis because.
Why is it so toxic to us still though, like obviously, like,
OK, so me personally, I'm not, I am not an alcohol fan.
I've had you know, people die in my family from alcohols and
that's not why I just, I even anytime I've I'll drink a cold,
you know Modelo on a on a hot day or something like that or
I'll have one or two. But I don't really enjoy alcohol
as a compound compared to other compounds like, you know,
cannabis or psilocybin or whatever.
It just, it feels like it's not supposed to be in our bodies to
me. And I know.
Most of us don't produce it endogenously.
Some people do, but but because they can get the current
understanding is that they can get, for example, a bad yeast
infection and insensitive people.
They can produce high amounts of alcohol in in their blood.
That's interesting. I didn't know that you could.
So there's people that actually produce alcohol in there about
oh wow, I didn't even know the. There's been cases of people
that have been mistakenly accused of being drunk because
of drinking and whatnot, but only to be demonstrated that
they can produce it endogenously.
That's crazy. That's fascinating.
Oh yeah, at least, absolutely not.
There's not very many cases about that, but it's been
documented. But the thing about it, I'm just
like you. My limit is like 1 beer when I
mow the lawn. OK, things like that, that that
that's me. But then it's a compound that in
moderation is not going to be poisonous to you.
OK, but then it's a cost benefit ratio.
Let's suppose that you are a small primate.
OK, again, under nutritional deprivation and you are
undernourished. But then those fermented fruit
not only have the vitamins and minerals and whatnot, but
alcohol is rich in calories, right?
So. So one of the things that they
advise people who want to lose weight and whatnot, well, try
not to drink, because alcohol has a very high caloric content.
But if you are undernourished in the wild, that's what you want,
to get as many calories as as you can.
Well, that was the argument too. For like the beginning of
civilization, right? Like water was such gross,
filled with parasites and bacteria that that's why alcohol
was kind of like a an accelerant on civilization.
And you would find in Gobekli, Tepe and Ancient Egypt, you
would find the bakery next to the brewery because of the
yeast. So, Yep, absolutely, yeah.
So I mean though, I mean it still is talking like, you know,
like you said like little amounts, but does that add up?
You know, I know your liver can recover pretty well compared to
other organs and stuff like that.
But is it something that like you the old adage like if you
have one cigarette, it takes seven years off.
You're like whatever myth that was growing up, it's like you've
smoked. It takes seven days off your
life. Or is that the same thing with
alcohol where like no amount is good for you but you could
tolerate it kind of a thing or? It's gonna depend on the person
because the amount of genetic variability that we have as a
species, some people are going to be hypersensitive to.
I know how to explain it. There's there's a branch of
pharmacology called pharmacogenetics.
OK. And that goes to the idea that
right now pharmaceutical practices most sizes fit most
OK. What I'm trying to say is that,
for example, you go to the doctor and they find that you
have hypertension, OK? She prescribes a certain
medication against high blood pressure.
They begin with a very small dose and then they told you.
They tell you come back in three months, they check you out.
If you still hypertense, they will give you a little bit of
medicine until you get to the maximum amount that is safe.
If that still doesn't work, they test another hypertension,
Hypertension medicine. So the the dream, as it were, is
in a Star Trek society that they will scan you and they will tell
you, OK, the medicine that you need is this one in this
concentration, in this dosage. But it's the same thing with
alcohol. I can get dizzy with a beer.
That's part of the reason why my limit is 1 beer while mowing the
lawn. OK, some people need more, quite
more than a beer to get the same amount of dizziness.
That's based on our genes too. OK, so then again, we will not
know until we do the proverbial experiment.
And that's, let's put it this way, I wouldn't try to taste a
mushroom that I don't know about.
OK, that can nourish me, can get me high, but it can also kill
me, right? So I don't want to be the
subject of that experiment if you don't want it.
Yeah, you got to be careful, even ones.
I mean, you know, there's so many mushroom.
I Dean is probably the one of the most dangerous things.
I see people online all the time on like forums.
Like, can I eat this mushroom? Don't eat the mushroom, Don't.
If you don't know what it is and you're not an expert, don't eat
it, because there's a good chance that it's not what you
think it is. And even, you know, there's a
lot of people be like, oh, this is Ammonita.
Yeah, it's a different kind of an Ammonita.
It's Panthera, it's not muscaria.
And it, you know, it's the the it's got different effects and
you know, you better know how to get rid of the convert the
epitanic acid into muscamol before you start, you know, that
kind of stuff. I'm sorry for interrupting it.
What if you're you turn to be allergic and you don't know it?
Exactly. Oh yeah.
Allergy. Yeah, yeah absolutely.
What interests you? Like what?
Is there anything fascinating to you right now in the in these
realms that like a mystery or something that you're you're
getting into? I always ask this cause like
it's one thing for us to read your book and be fascinating,
but is there something that you find mysterious or you find
interesting? Well, it's kind of out of my
direct area of expertise, but I'm learning a little, a little
bit about it. It's the idea that quantum
mechanics has a lot to do with pharm, has more to do with
pharmacology than we would like to realize.
OK. So and I'm not talking about for
people when they say, well, everything is quantum, that's a
pet peeve that I have when people say, well, we don't
understand quantum, OK, so that that's not the way it works.
OK. But then there's a lot of lines
of evidence that indicate that quantum effects affect
pharmacological agents and that's an area of research
that's beginning to come about. There's a whole like body of
knowledge called quantum biology that people have found that
photosynthesis deals with quantum effects.
OK. Many types of DNA interactions
in terms of how DNA find their bases and all these type of
things. So it's about quantum effects.
I I don't know who I was talking to.
I recently found out there's different types of
photosynthesis too. Yes.
I didn't know. I didn't know.
You just learn like, oh, photos. But there's different.
It's crazy. Not only that, there's a a type
of insect that evolved a type of photosynthesis different from
the photosynthesis in plants, and I'll do you one better.
There's a such thing as radiotrophic fungi, certain
types of fungus, that they grow up in the inside of nuclear
reactors, and they use radioactivity as their source of
it's not photosynthesis because it's not right, but but they use
it as a kind of photosynthesis based on radiation.
Yeah, I read that because they were talking about Chernobyl.
Yes, that's part of the and then there's another one now where
they're saying now there's fungi that can break down plastics
like forever plastics somehow so.
And bacteria, they they they it's biotechnology something.
It's beautiful. It's a little scary but but but
it's beautiful. I mean, they can do pretty much
anything. So in terms of, you know, we're
talking about all this amazing stuff is there you know I
mentioned before like learning pharmacology at an early age to
avoid people growing up and not knowing what, you know, fentanyl
or whatever these harmful substances are.
And to understand that like we live in a world now where even
if you are a part of your doing recreational drugs, you got to
be careful. Cause the cocaine might be laced
with fentanyl or the heroin might be laced with fentanyl or
the, you know. And while some of these
compounds even MDMA, I've heard too.
So it's like anything powder, you got to be careful, you got
to test your stuff if you are going to do that.
Nobody recommends that. But if you are going to that you
test your stuff. We've lost countless people,
family members, friends to the whole fentanyl thing.
It's just, it's very and you mentioned in your book when you
start off you're talking about opioids actually or opiates and
you have your opiates which are all derivative of the actual
plant and then you have the semi synthetic ones that is
fentanyl's synthetic, correct. It's not.
It's not even related to the poppy plant at all, right?
So it it's similar but but it's a synthetic compound.
So that one, that's one where the the dose, you know, all you
need is a little dose for it to be poison, which is crazy.
We go back to what we were talking about.
Someone, someone can be resistant to it but somebody may
be hypersensitive to that. So, and again, drug addiction is
something is a tragedy at so many levels.
And and as a parent, I mean, that terrifies me Still so.
That's one of the scariest things, especially if you've got
young kids. Now, you know, what is the world
going to look like in 10 years or five years or whatever?
So, OK, so we're talking about something that's super minute
that can have a massive impact on us.
But is it? I was thinking, you know, how
like they say like, oh, ants can carry 300 times their body
weight or any. Is there some insect or animal
that can withstand serious amounts of some sort of thing
that would kill anything else or something like that?
Does that make sense, that question?
Yes, I I know exactly what you mean.
And there's one, there's a particular type of insect that
actually feeds on coca plants, OK.
And they can ingest massive amounts of of the plant and of
course cocaine, the active principle and they don't get it
doesn't it's not an insecticide to them.
OK. So and they it's most most
likely an artifact of their metabolism.
Maybe they metabolize it very rapidly.
They inactivated very rapidly. They can use that.
They can actually accumulate that in their bodies, presumably
to protect themselves as a population.
So are they synth? So when it comes into their
body, are they synthesizing it into something else?
Or is it just staying in their body as cocaine?
Most likely they'll metabolize it.
OK, I'm not entirely familiar with that.
Let's put it this way. I'm not an expert in that
particular area, but most likely, as a general rule,
everything gets metabolized in a body.
OK, so anything and everything. That's part of the reason why
you have to be careful with dosages of medications and
whatnot, because sometimes it gets changed into substances
that you're going to excrete. OK, the usual suspects, that's
part of the idea. But sometimes they will
transform into toxic things, right?
Ethanol, it can be transformed into something called
acetaldehyde for example, which can be highly toxic.
So, but in as a general rule, even though the liver is the
main organ of metabolism, every cell in your body and mind, they
have certain degree of metabolic capabilities.
So that that's how they survive. Very interesting.
I don't know. Have you seen these lately?
Them using how they're using AI to try and communicate with the
whales and the the dolphins and stuff I've.
Heard about it and it's that's super fascinating because that
that has implications and if and when we discover life elsewhere
because one of the main oh actually this goes you're going
to love this one. There was a scientist in the
1960s that he actually gave LSD to dolphins, actually.
And I forget what's what's the the name.
Are you talking about John C Lilly?
Yes, that that's the. One, and he had the deprivation
tanks and he was injecting ketamine trying to communicate.
Yeah, we know about that on this show.
Well, yeah, but. The link, The link of Lilly with
the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is that in the very
first conference, when I'm sure you're familiar with the Drake
equation and all these type of things, in the meeting where
Frank Drake came up with the Drake Equation, one of the
attendees was John Lilly. Because they reasoned that if we
hope to communicate with some place, some, some something out
there, we first learn, should learn how to communicate with
things in our own planet. And Lily was trying, was a
pioneer to try to communicate with dolphins.
Then he went out of, you know, he there were many, you know.
Hey man, I mean, when when you start playing with altered
states of consciousness and deprivation tanks, you can get
out there and you know, you know, it happens.
But like you said, there's probably some good Nuggets in
there from the early days at least.
And you know, that's something that's interesting too, Cause
dolphins don't. They have a larger frontal
cortex than we do. They have their whole brain is
bigger than ours, especially for in proportion to their bodies
so. So, but but isn't the the
prevailing wisdom that is it's our front like our frontal
cortex is what kind of distinguishes us cognitively
from the rest of like we have a large frontal.
So if they have a massive frontal cortex, there's probably
a good chance that we probably can communicate with them And
they are super intelligent and maybe they just don't have the
hands and appendages and poseable thumbs and tools that
we've evolved with, right. So yeah.
Yeah, they they don't have the, the the digits to to create a
technological intelligence, no. Very fascinating.
Well, listen, let's try and wrap it up here.
But I I mean, I we could do this forever.
So let's let's try and maybe set up another time for you to come
back on. I'd love to.
I'll. Be happy to do that then.
I'm just a little under the weather but like this is super
fascinating to me. Like I said and I'm.
I'm excited and yeah, I mean I I got to finish your your one book
still Strange Survivors. So once I finish that maybe we
can get you back on here and continuing the conversation here
but is there anything else you wanna plug?
You're doing your podcast. I would actually from you know,
I'm, I'm not one to tell but I would like to see you interview
some of these people that are doing the research on these you
know cocaine insects and you know you know puffer fish and.
I'm thinking about that. I have a lot of plans for that
because I like so many things that it's a it's a blessing and
a curse. You know, I I know.
You know exactly what I mean. Oh.
Absolutely it. It's something that that's in
the plans, but but again, I thank you for for having me.
I love talking about this and I really appreciate it.
I really. Oh, oh, no problem.
No problem. Like I said, I I mean, I was
asking you things that I've wondered about for a while, and
reading your book definitely, like I said, inspired me.
And lately I haven't. You know, I'm such an avid
reader. I've read probably 1000 books
since this podcast, you know, maybe even more, and tons of
scientific papers since we started this podcast.
And lately I just haven't felt much like it.
But you know, you're I'm like, I'm gonna check out this book
and your book kind of re got me into it.
And I'm always listening to like play DoH dialogues at night and
weird stuff like that. But this kind of reinvigorated
me into the whole. You know, mystery thing and
trying to figure out these these modern mysteries if you will.
Especially with the animals. Cuz I love animals.
I grew up being very close to animals, having pets and going
to aquariums and having you know pet bass lick lizards and all
sorts of different things. So yeah.
That's high praise again and that's what it's about.
And if you have any other questions, if your listeners
have questions, they can send me an e-mail.
They can send me a message through my website
bothscientists.com. They have a form there.
I I I love talking about science, so I I'll welcome any
type of. Please do that.
If anybody's listening, please send.
If you're interested in any of this, please send him an e-mail
and check out his podcast, Bald Scientist.
All One word. Check out his books Strange
Survivors and Drunken Flies and Stone Dolphins, which I really
recommend both of them I've I have I've only like a third of
the way through and they're not super long by the way, so
they're very palatable I think. I think you know on Audible, I
don't know how many pages there but on audible I think Strange
Survivors is only like 9 hours long which is actually not super
long you know to compare. So, yeah, I I really appreciate
you coming on and sharing your knowledge and your your years of
research and experience and you're curious too.
And I love that. I, I I love talking with
scientists that are having open dialogues about things and just
pondering like everybody else and not standing from, you know,
grandstanding. Oh, I know this and I know that.
So yeah, I really appreciate what you're doing and definitely
everybody needs to go check out your stuff and your podcast and
yeah, I look forward to seeing your guest too on your podcast.
Like I said, I, I, I, you know, I I just, you get lost
sometimes. But this was refreshing and I
love, I love these topics and I know it's nerdy, but here we
are, you know? Yeah.
Well, you're in good company, so I'll keep you.
Posted awesome, sounds good. And if you'd like to support
mine escape, just click the link tree link down below.
We've got merch stores if you want to leave us a nice review.
We do all of our shows live on YouTube and I actually even
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there. And all of our episodes go on to
Spotify. We have video episodes on
Spotify. Please check us out on there.
And yeah, we're on all podcast platforms.
So I really appreciate this Onay and I like where you're going
with all this and I look forward to your future research and
podcasts and everything and we'll try and get you back on
here soon. Thanks again anytime.
All right. Well, we love everybody.
Stay safe out there and we'll see you Episode 300.
And Maurice, I should mention and I could have brought this up
in the episode, but we'll talk about I wanted to save it.
Maurice just got back who's my Co host and cousin just got back
from the Galapagos Islands. So yeah.
So that should be a fascinating. You want to hear about animals?
We're going to be talking about some animals there too.
So but yeah, we love everybody. Stay safe out there and we'll
catch you next time. None.