← Back to KHAO

Google ·

DiNardo claimed that Mindstate’s AI works like AlphaFold, the model from Google DeepMind that has wowed structural biologists—and

2 min read

Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 2 sources. See llms.txt for citation guidance.

◎ Multiple-sources

Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Getty; Shutterstock.

Nature is always performing chemistry experiments, and in the dark and sticky corners of its forests and jungles, it creates compounds that have hyper-specific effects on the human mind.

Key facts

Summary

In China’s Yunnan province, a yellow mushroom with a droopy cap sprouts up in the mountains, usually in the shade of long-needled pines. Many people of different ages and cultural backgrounds have eaten this mushroom and experienced the same hallucination. For thousands of years, humans have searched nature for mind-altering substances through a process of trial and (sometimes fatal) error. Now that psychedelic research has been legitimized, scientists at university labs and biotech start-ups are wondering whether they can create a better one. “Nature’s compounds aren’t always optimal,” Manoj Doss, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas at Austin, told me. A single dose of it seems to help people liberate themselves from opioids, quelling their cravings and mellowing their withdrawal symptoms.

#Google