Gramine

[pitubo]

It is like a Lego and it isn't, molecules can be manipulated, but you must understand the rules regarding what you can and can not do...

Sigh.. No it's not like legos at all. You do not get to pick up the individual parts and make a fit at will. Furthermore, you never work on a single specimen, but instead work with gazillions, even at nanomolar scale. It is more of a statistical process than a deterministic operation.

Or say you understand that tryptamine and methyl-iodide produce N,N,N-trimethyltryptammonium iodide,

How would your lego-logic inform you that you won't get 1,N,N,N-tetramethyltryptammonium iodide instead?

and that removing a methyl group from N,N,N-trimethyltryptammonium iodide will give n,n-dimethyltryptamine, so, like a Lego, you want to pull a CH3 off of the N,N,N-trimethyltryptammonium iodide, so what do you do?

Easy, you pick up the indole side of each molecule with your right hand and then pull really hard on one of the methyl groups with the left hand! :d

Hmmm, what if I end up with the whole trimethylammonium iodide group in my left hand and indole-3-ethene in my right hand? :?

...and like a Lego you managed to remove the CH3 group that you set out to remove...giving DMT

And no side products at all! Yay! :surprised

...and I'm not going to argue whether molecules can be viewed as "legos" or not, it's subjective to your understandings...

But you are still arguing about the lego analogy. And chemistry is not subjective to one's understandings. There is no "trans-cultural postmodernist ethics of molecular identity theory".

though I would like to remind those who are more knowledgeable to try to be more supportive of those who learning and cut them some slack.

Would being ignored get you your slack?

This thread is (still) about gramine. A casual and limited branching off into related issues is tolerable. Extensively going off-topic is just noise IMHO. Maybe this is just my subjective understanding, but since I stopped being an everyday & all day stoner, I rediscovered my appreciation for being succinct and to the point. I'm sorry if that comes across as intolerant and rude. There is a time and place for daydreaming and community-volunteered education. This thread is not.

Can we keep the discussion focused on such points as:
- actual toxicity of gramine (or health benefits?) in terms of dose and effects.
- physical and chemical properties of gramine, with the aim of finding ways to separate out (or not extract to begin with) gramine.

 

[Mindlusion]

and that removing a methyl group from N,N,N-trimethyltryptammonium iodide will give n,n-dimethyltryptamine, so, like a Lego, you want to pull a CH3 off of the N,N,N-trimethyltryptammonium iodide, so what do you do?

Easy, you pick up the indole side of each molecule with your right hand and then pull really hard on one of the methyl groups with the left hand! :d

Hmmm, what if I end up with the whole trimethylammonium iodide group in my left hand and indole-3-ethene in my right hand? :?

No, just reduce with a strong hydride source. That will give the tertiary amine.

It is sort of like lego, if the lego is entirely self-assembling, based on the steric and electronic effects of those pieces, that you have no real control over the pieces but only the conditions in which those pieces exist in. The flow of electrons determine if those pieces want to stick together or fall apart. So if you can align your intentions, desires and work with that flow of electrons, then yeah it's like lego. At that point its also like new age metaphysics too.


On the topic of separating gramine, other than the obvious use of a chromatography column. One could simply play around with different solvents and solubility, its distinctly more polar than DMT. I haven't done any research myself, perhaps that information is already out there.

---

On another more interesting debate, this talk of mechanically pulling molecules apart or assembling them like lego, has been discussed, and furiously rebutted, in nanoscience journals about 15 years ago, Check out Smalley vs Drexler for more reading, both men are/were extremely accomplished chemists/physicists , respected in their fields. Pitubo's argument is essentially Smalley's, and Drexler contradicts it, or at least challenges it.

Drexler–Smalley debate on molecular nanotechnology - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Such a pleasure to read pitubo's posts! I think Lego should produce some molecular modelling sets, that would be cool.

Mindlusion - no synth talk! :lol:

Back on topic, there's very likely a way of exploiting the different pKb values, like a harmine/harmaline separation.

 

[roninsina]

Just to briefly note: If you search the on-line chemical supply houses for "gramine for sale", it's noted that it's nearly insoluble in both water and petroleum ether (more-or-less naptha?). And the same is mentioned within the phalaris threads along with lots of other interesting data on gramine and hordenine.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

:thumb_up:

 

[pitubo]

Can we keep the discussion focused on such points as:
- actual toxicity of gramine (or health benefits?) in terms of dose and effects.
- physical and chemical properties of gramine, with the aim of finding ways to separate out (or not extract to begin with) gramine.

Since there has now appeared a thread Gramine toxicity that is dedicated to the biological and medical properties of gramine, perhaps we can further restrict discussion in this thread to the the physio-chemical properties of gramine.

Just to briefly note: If you search the on-line chemical supply houses for "gramine for sale", it's noted that it's nearly insoluble in both water and petroleum ether (more-or-less naptha?). And the same is mentioned within the phalaris threads along with lots of other interesting data on gramine and hordenine.

I'd really like to see primary scientific references for this. I don't know what trust to applky to information from an unnamed vendor.

Also, could you please give links (and/or quotes) to the relevant information in the threads you mention?

 

[roninsina]

roninsina wrote:
Just to briefly note: If you search the on-line chemical supply houses for "gramine for sale", it's noted that it's nearly insoluble in both water and petroleum ether (more-or-less naptha?). And the same is mentioned within the phalaris threads along with lots of other interesting data on gramine and hordenine.

Pitubo wrote:
I'd really like to see primary scientific references for this. I don't know what trust to applky to information from an unnamed vendor.

Also, could you please give links (and/or quotes) to the relevant information in the threads you mention?

It's mentioned repetitiously in the 'Phalaris=the way of the future' thread, and is cited as being confirmed on the Merck index, as such. It's also in several of the other phalaris threads (I think first mentioned by Trickster (?) But I can't find the thread). As far as vendors go, it's just about any on-line vendor, that I could find, will confirm this, as part of the product description, along with some other basic data.

I think some of the people who had formerly participated in this thread, already knew this. Endlesness and Nen, at least (Nen had already posted a link for the thread I mentioned - I was just hinting that maybe people should read it, with my previous post)

Edit: Obviously, Benz knew this, as well.

 

[endlessness]

I have pure gramine from sigma aldrich and have done some preliminary solubility tests. It is insoluble in aliphatic naphtha, slightly soluble in limonene and somewhat soluble in xylene and very soluble in acetone (all as freebase). Ive also seen it does precipitate with fasa.I can make more precise tests when im back homenin a month, also test solubility in other solvents. Ive also tested with colorimetric reagents and its easy to tell if there is gramine in a sample since it turns black with mandelin, mecke and marquis even if its only 10% of total alkaloids in sample.

 

[roninsina]

Thank you for your, always generous diligence, Endlessness. It is comforting to have the reassurance of data that you have personally gathered. I live near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, where desmanthus species are quite prolific. A few large handfuls of DIRB have been awaiting my attention for well over a year and I'm reinspired to break out my naptha can and run Cyb's extraction. Though I would love to do a side by side with some version of your ethanol, vinegar, and sodium carbonate method. I am a very infrequent smoalker and have more extracted MHRB than I will have use for, for some considerable time, but it may be a way I can return a tiny bit of what this community has given to me.

On another note; Bundleflowerpower was making brews with DIRB for, at least some short time, and didn't report any ill effects AFAIK. It does bring up an interesting paradox, however. The recent report of rats being administered with gramine and showing a significant increase in testicular weight... Which came first? Did Bundleflowerpower gain the giant balls required to drink the DIRB brews from drinking DIRB brews? There appears to be some spice inspired, temporal flux at play here.:lol: