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  • daitoNot The OnionTobacco plant altered to produce five psychedelic drugs
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    8 days ago

    Berman et al., Sci. Adv. 12, eaeb3034 (2026) 1 April 2026

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    P L A N T S C I E N C E S

    Complete biosynthesis of psychedelic tryptamines from

    three kingdoms in plants

    Paula Berman1,2

    *†, Janka Höfer 1

    †, Herschel Mehlman1

    , Efrat Almekias-Siegl1

    , Olga Khersonsky 3

    ,

    Younghui Dong 4

    ‡, Uwe Heinig4

    , Liron Sulimani5

    , Let Kho Hao1,2

    , Shahar Cohen2

    , Yoav Peleg4

    ,

    Sagit Meir1

    , Ilana Rogachev 1

    , David Meiri5

    , Sarel J. Fleishman3

    , Asaph Aharoni1

    *

    Psychedelic indolethylamines with therapeutic potential are naturally produced in plants, fungi, and animals.

    Here, we elucidated the complete N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) biosynthetic pathway in hallucinogenic plant

    species traditionally used in shamanic rituals for spiritual healing. Leveraging the similarities in their chemical

    structures, we reconstructed in one plant assay the full biosynthetic pathways of five renowned natural psyche-

    delics; psilocin and psilocybin found in mushrooms, DMT from plants, and bufotenin and 5-methoxy-DMT secret-

    ed by the Sonoran Desert toad. We further engineered halogenated analogs of these molecules, which do not

    naturally occur in plants and exhibit prospective therapeutic potential for psychiatric conditions. Blending cata-

    lytic functions across the tree of life, coupled with metabolic engineering guided by rational protein design of

    mutant enzymes, enabled substantially more efficient in planta production of the indolethylamine components.

    This work establishes a versatile platform for concurrent biosynthesis and diversification of psychoactive indole-

    thylamines, paving the way for their production in plants.

    INTRODUCTION

    For thousands of years, psychedelic substances have been used by

    indigenous cultures as entheogens in rituals intended to induce al-

    tered states of consciousness for spiritual and therapeutic purposes.

    Psilocybin-containing mushrooms were central to ancient Aztec

    ceremonies (1), while N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the pri-

    mary psychoactive component of ayahuasca, has long been used

    in traditional Amazonian rituals. This ceremonial brew combines

    Psychotria viridis (a natural source of DMT) with Banisteriopsis caapi,

    which provides β-carboline monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibi-

    tors that render DMT orally active (1, 2). Similarly, 5-methoxy-N,N-

    dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), found in the secretion of

    the Sonoran Desert toad (Incilius alvarius) and in several plant spe-

    cies, is thought to have been used ceremonially by indigenous

    groups in northern Mexico (3). 5-MeO-DMT has been described

    as the most potent DMT analog, being about 4- to 10-fold more po-

    tent than DMT in humans and is known to induce psychedelic ex-

    periences that are distinct from those of DMT (4). Knowledge of

    the traditional use of these molecules has fueled contemporary

    therapeutic interest in psychedelics as treatments for neuropsychiat-

    ric conditions.

    Recent studies have shown that classical indolethylamine psy-

    chedelics promote neuroplasticity and modulate serotonergic cir-

    cuits, primarily through 5-HT 2A receptor activation (5–7). These

    compounds have demonstrated therapeutic potential for depression,

    anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and addiction (5–8), with psi-

    locybin receiving Food and Drug Administration Breakthrough

    Therapy designation for major depressive disorder in 2019 (6, 7).

    Although widely considered hallucinogenic, psilocybin itself func-

    tions as a prodrug, undergoing enzymatic dephosphorylation in the

    digestive tract and liver to produce psilocin, the active compound

    responsible for its psychoactive effects. DMT is produced by a broad

    range of plant species and, in low abundance, by certain animals (2).

    When administered via smoking or intravenous injection, it pro-

    duces rapid and intense psychoactive effects that typically peak with-

    in 5 min and subside within 30 min, due to rapid metabolism by

    MAO enzymes in the liver. Coadministration with MAO inhibitors

    can extend the half-life of DMT in vivo (2). The traditional use of

    ayahuasca exemplifies how combining compounds from different

    sources can enable oral activity; however, such combinations require

    carefully balanced dosing to mitigate adverse effects associated with

    MAO inhibition (9).

    The expanding clinical interest in psychedelics as therapeutics

    has sparked the need for scalable and versatile production platforms

    and structural diversification (10, 11). Traditionally, the supply of

    psychedelics relies on natural producers, mainly plants, fungi, and

    the Sonoran Desert toad. Harvesting these organisms for their psy-

    choactive compounds raises ecological and ethical concerns, being

    increasingly threatened by habitat loss and overexploitation (12).

    While synthetic routes for these compounds are available and, in

    some cases, relatively straightforward, they still require compound-

    specific reactants, can lead to unwanted intermediates and prod-

    ucts, and require several processing steps (2, 13, 14). Biocatalys




  • daitoMildly InfuriatingPlastic hinges on modern headphones
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    1 month ago

    Yeah it’s a pain to install however. One of our dogs had a chomp on the wife’s set, took me quite sometime to disasemble the headphones just to install it.

    Honestly if you can get something to wrap over / stitch over the top go that route. The XM4 are fiddily as fuck to tear down just to replace the headband.

    Oh those are a clip on version. FML might have to get that to replace the black band on the grey set of headphones.


  • daitoMildly InfuriatingPlastic hinges on modern headphones
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    1 month ago

    If you wear glasses you could try sticking the magnet to those I guess?

    Saying so I had one of the original mod mics and it was great while it lasted, but I found the cable was damaged pretty easily which ended up with it in the bin.

    They do have a wireless version with its own dongle, decent bit of kit despite the micro USB charging lol.


  • I wasn’t able to read the article, for those who are in the same boat it’s copied below. Sorry no images.

    Edit: Saw the archived link, mybad 😅

    www.wired.com

    The ‘European’ Jolla Phone Is an Anti-Big-Tech Smartphone

    Julian Chokkattu

    7 - 9 minutes

    Jolla may not be a household name, but for more than a decade the Finnish company has positioned its Linux-based Sailfish OS as an alternative to the mobile software duopoly that is Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

    Now, 13 years since it tried to cut through the market with the Jolla Phone—a device which remarkably received software updates through 2020—it’s back with a successor of the same name.

    This time, the company is positioning its handset as the “European phone.” This bit of marketing caters to the growing distrust in US digital services and platforms that has arisen since Big Tech sidled up to the second Trump administration.

    The new Jolla Phone (pronounced “Yolla”) costs €649, mimics the Scandinavian design of the original, and has secured more than 10,000 preorders since its preview in December 2025. Those orders are expected to begin shipping at the end of June. At Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona this week, the company divulged more details about the phone’s hardware.

    Alt Android

    Jolla has had a turbulent history. After the company floundered the launch of its Jolla Tablet in 2015, it nearly went bankrupt and pivoted to licensing Sailfish OS to automotive companies and governments, including Russia. After the invasion of Ukraine, Jolla had to cut ties with Russia, and a corporate restructuring meant that Jolla’s assets were acquired by the company’s former management under a new company called Jollyboys.

    Image may contain Electronics Mobile Phone Phone Computer Hardware Hardware Monitor and Screen

    The new Jolla Phone.

    Courtesy of Jolla

    It got back into the smartphone game in 2024 with the Jolla C2 Community Phone, made in collaboration with a local Turkish company, and it was this experience that gave Jolla the courage to jump back into the hardware business with the new Jolla Phone. Unlike the C2, this device is completely assembled in Salo, Finland, where Nokia phones were manufactured more than a decade ago.

    “Europeans want more European technology,” Sami Pienimäki, CEO of Jolla Mobile, tells WIRED. “People want to go away from Big Tech, and the other trend is that European people want sovereign tech—it makes it possible for our kind of company to have a position in the market.”

    Building a smartphone from scratch was also much harder over a decade ago, but today, Pienimäki says the operation can be fairly lean without having to “pay too much up-front.”

    The components are sourced from various vendors and countries. The MediaTek Dimensity 7100 5G chip hails from Taiwan; the 50-megapixel main and 13-megapixel ultrawide camera sensors are from Sony; the 8 or 12 GB of RAM is from SK Hynix in South Korea.

    “There are Chinese components as well—we are totally open about it—but the key is that, as we compile the software ourselves and install it in Finland, we protect the integrity of the product,” Pienimäki says.

    What makes Sailfish OS unique over competitors like GrapheneOS and e/OS is that it’s not based on the Android Open Source Project, but Linux. That means it has no ties to Google—no need for the company to “deGoogle” the software; meaning there’s a greater sense of sovereignty over the software (and now the hardware). Still, it’s able to run Android apps, though the implementation isn’t perfect. Another common criticism is that it’s not as secure as options like GrapheneOS, where every app is sandboxed.

    There’s a good chance some Android apps on Sailfish OS will run into issues, which is why in the startup wizard the phone will ask if you want to install services like MicroG—open source software that can run Google services on devices that don’t have the Google Play Store, making it an easier on-ramp for folks coming from traditional smartphones without a technical background. You don’t even need to create a Sailfish OS account to use the Jolla Phone.

    Jolla’s effort is hardly the first to push the anti–Big Tech narrative. A wave of other hardware and software companies offer a deGoogled experience, whether that’s Murena from France and its e/OS privacy-friendly operating system or the Canadian GrapheneOS, which just announced a partnership with Motorola. At CES earlier this year, the Swiss company Punkt also teamed up with ApostrophyOS to deploy its software on the new MC03 smartphone. Jolla is following a broader European trend of reducing reliance on US companies, like how French officials ditched Zoom for French-made video conference software earlier this year.

    Murena CEO and founder Gaël Duval wrote in a statement emailed to WIRED that the company believes it has a different mission from the Jolla Phone as it’s trying to bring the existing mobile app ecosystem—minus the permanent data collection by Google and third-party trackers—without a learning curve for the average person. “We want to make privacy possible for the everyday person without the need for technical expertise or a development background,” he says.

    The Phone

    A common problem with these niche smartphones is that they inevitably end up costing a lot of money for the specs. Take the Light Phone III, for example, a fairly low-tech anti-smartphone that doesn’t enjoy the benefits of economies of scale, resulting in an outlandish $699 price. The Jolla Phone is in a similar boat, though the specs-to-value ratio is a little more respectable.

    It’s powered by a midrange MediaTek Dimensity 7100 5G chip with 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot and dual-SIM tray. There’s a 6.36-inch 1080p AMOLED screen, the two main cameras, and a 32-megapixel selfie shooter. The 5,500-mAh battery cell is fairly large considering the phone’s size, though the phone’s connectivity is a little dated, stuck with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4.

    Uniquely, the Jolla Phone brings back “The Other Half” functional rear covers from the original. These swappable back covers have pogo pins that interface with the phone, allowing people to create unique accessories like a second display on the back of the phone or even a keyboard attachment. There’s an Innovation Program where the community can cocreate functional covers together and 3D-print them. And yes, a removable rear cover means the Jolla Phone’s battery is user-replaceable.

    Pienimäki says that while the device doesn’t have FCC approval, you can theoretically import it into the US, and it should work with the major US carriers, though compatibility is rarely a given. Jolla is considering a separate US launch, though right now it’s focusing on the European Union, the UK, Norway, and Switzerland.

    Antti Saarnio, Jolla Group’s chairperson, reiterates that the Jolla Phone will be a niche product. “Most of the people using Android or iOS will not switch, but we should treat this as a stepping stone for something new,” Saarnio says. The “path to real volume” will come from the mobile market breaking down into new form factors, powered by artificial intelligence.

    He’s likely referring to Jolla’s Mind2, a privacy-focused AI computer, which is still in active development. It plugs into a PC and connects Jolla’s AI assistant to apps like email and calendar locally—no cloud access required. The chatbot-like interface lets you ask it questions about your data, whether you’re fishing for something from an email or a private message. While the new Jolla Phone won’t have any AI capabilities at launch, Saarnio says an integration will be an option users can enable later this year.

    Jolla has street cred for supporting its devices for a long time, but we’ll have to wait and see how the fresh hardware holds up and just how much the company has polished the Sailfish OS experience, especially since it’s much easier today to get started with a deGoogled Android alternative.


  • Could you add lithium cells to that repellant and charge from the car battery?  Using some 18650 batteries and a usb-c lithium charger hooked up to the accessories power would probably do the trick. Unless you use the car infrequently / power draw.

    Lithium chargers are cheap as chips via aliexpress, just depends on the input voltage to the repellant device & how much power it draws. You could probably add an esp32 to that setup to report back if the charge is falling too low if you really wanted to get invested 😅.





  • daitohomeassistantTV and soundbar with local integration
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    2 months ago

    Largest thing for me would be Netflix, if that’s at least kept its probably another task to chalk up for me.

    From memory lots of streaming services have reduced functionality when running custom roms on phones; but it’s been a hot minute since I’ve done such.


  • daitoSelfhostedHow many containers are you all running?
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    2 months ago

    Running 50 on one machine, four on my fileserver and another on a hacked up hp eliteone (no screen) which runs my 3d printer. Believe my immich container is a nspawn under nixos too.

    Some are a wip but the majority are in use. Mostly internal services with a couple internet facing, I’ve got a good backlog of work to do on some with some refactoring my nixos configs for many too 😅.

    From my Erying ES system:



  • Not your traditional TVs but look and see if you can get some TVs aimed at venues / advertising. I can see an LG IPS display, 98 inch for sub 10k AUD including shipping (98UM5J-B).

    Phillips, LG, Samsung and others offer commercial panels without the rubbish that consumer panels are infected with these days.


  • This is actually pretty minimal in Australia (as someone who has worked in Hospitality for 20+ years)

    Very few venues actually require this to enter, the majority check at the door or once you ae inside the venue.

    Edit: Some owners of multiple venues have rolled these systems out in the past that I’ve seen, generally ones that have seen a rise in patron issues. Its handy that if someone has caused issues in one place they won’t get allowed into another; but it’s not worth the privacy risk in my eyes.


  • Yeah the LEDs were always handy to have, and the coloured notifications on the trackball (nexus 1) with a third party app was super cool at the time. My trackball after a few years got pretty dirty and didn’t want to clean with chemicals in fear of damaging it.

    Currently using a Nothing (3) which is somewhat similar with the small led display on the back.