The myopia required to claim that "The puzzle of how tobacco plants produce nicotine, however, has been around since the late 1820s" is egregious considering we've evidence attesting to tobacco use dating back twelve thousand years.
Does the author genuinely believe that no one wondered in the ten thousand years between our earliest example of tobacco use and 1820?
Well, the author specifically mentions the puzzle of how it produces nicotine. Nicotine was first identified and isolated as a chemical in 1828, based on a quick google. So, no one was wondering about nicotine production before then because they didn’t know what it was.
A curious question. Those same people also bred brassica oleraceae into so many different crops so they had to have SOME idea of how plants worked. Maybe they did not attribute it to molecules but growing conditions or locations, or something.
Either way somebody somewhere wondered about this before 1820.
You may enjoy the original paper[0] a lot more, the simplified article is very... simple.
[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-72705-0
And the implication is they can modify tomato's DNA to produce nicotine, just like Tomacco from The Simpsons. The Simpsons always predict everything.
The myopia required to claim that "The puzzle of how tobacco plants produce nicotine, however, has been around since the late 1820s" is egregious considering we've evidence attesting to tobacco use dating back twelve thousand years.
Does the author genuinely believe that no one wondered in the ten thousand years between our earliest example of tobacco use and 1820?
Well, the author specifically mentions the puzzle of how it produces nicotine. Nicotine was first identified and isolated as a chemical in 1828, based on a quick google. So, no one was wondering about nicotine production before then because they didn’t know what it was.
How exactly would they ask that question 10,000 years ago if they didn't know what molecules were, much less nicotine?
A curious question. Those same people also bred brassica oleraceae into so many different crops so they had to have SOME idea of how plants worked. Maybe they did not attribute it to molecules but growing conditions or locations, or something.
Either way somebody somewhere wondered about this before 1820.
It would be great if they could improve upon it.
I find nicotine to be an underperforming chemical, despite its popularity. A bit more of a cognitive kick would be nice. Know what I mean?
I know there's at least one nicotine analogue that's been sold. Pretty sure it's carcinogenic, but maybe there are some other options.
Pairs well with https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tobacco-psychedelics-psilocybi... !