Scientists have engineered tobacco plants to function as living factories for multiple psychedelic compounds. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel successfully modified Nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative of tobacco widely used in plant biotechnology, to produce five powerful tryptamine psychedelics. These compounds are naturally found in “magic mushrooms,” certain plants, and the secretions of a toad species. The breakthrough could pave the way for more sustainable and scalable production of psychedelic medicines, which are currently under intense investigation for treating depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction. To achieve this, the team introduced nine genes from different organisms (fungi, plants, and animals) into the tobacco plants using a transient expression technique called agroinfiltration. This method temporarily delivers the genes without permanently altering the plant’s genome, allowing the plants to produce the compounds for a limited time. The modified plants synthesized psilocybin and its active form psilocin (from mushrooms), as well as DMT, bufotenin, and 5-MeO-DMT (the potent psychedelic from the Colorado River toad). Some plants were even engineered to produce all five compounds simultaneously. This plant-based approach offers a promising alternative to harvesting psychedelics from wild or cultivated natural sources, many of which face increasing pressure from habitat loss, overharvesting, and rising research demand. Using common agricultural plants as biological production systems could reduce costs and environmental impact. While the yields in this proof-of-concept study were relatively modest, the work demonstrates the feasibility of producing complex psychoactive molecules in greenhouse-grown crops. It builds on decades of research using plants to manufacture pharmaceuticals and opens new possibilities for future psychedelic therapies. [Berman P, et al. Complete biosynthesis of psychedelic tryptamines from three kingdoms in plants. Science Advances. 2026;12(14):eaeb3034. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aeb3034]

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Scientists are investigating a little-known mushroom from China’s Yunnan province after it was linked to one of the most unusual types of hallucinations ever recorded. When Lanmaoa asiatica is eaten raw or not cooked thoroughly, some people experience vivid visions unlike those caused by well-known psychedelic substances. Rather than seeing abstract colours or distorted landscapes, many report encountering crowds of tiny human-like figures. These miniature characters are often described as resembling elves, fairies, clowns, or gnomes, and are said to climb over furniture, emerge from doorways, leap into bowls of food, and interact playfully with their surroundings. Medical reports suggest that around 90% of documented poisonings involving this mushroom include these rare “Lilliputian hallucinations,” making it one of the most distinctive poisoning syndromes associated with any fungus. What has puzzled researchers is that laboratory testing has found no trace of psilocybin or any other recognised hallucinogenic compound. Instead, scientists suspect the mushroom may contain an entirely unknown chemical capable of producing these extraordinary effects. Symptoms usually appear between 12 and 24 hours after the mushroom is eaten and may continue for several days. Although the hallucinations can be intense and unsettling, researchers reviewing hospital records have found no confirmed deaths directly attributed to this type of poisoning. One researcher, a doctoral student at the University of Utah, has spent years studying the mushroom throughout China and the Philippines. By combining DNA sequencing with chemical analysis, the research team has narrowed the search to a small group of candidate molecules, but the exact compound responsible has not yet been identified. If the mystery molecule is eventually discovered, it could represent an entirely new class of hallucinogen and provide valuable insights into how the brain creates our perception of reality. Learn more: '''It sounds so impossible': Student studying fungus that makes users hallucinate tiny people may be on the verge of a scientific breakthrough." LiveScience

Scientists made fish trip balls with magic mushrooms. It helped the fish with anger management. The research was done on a mangrove rivulus, a small Caribbean fish that is famously highly aggressive and territorial. If a stranger fish gets put into a mangrove rivulus's tank, it gets mad and will dart and lunge to chase the new fish out. Psilocybin (the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms) was added which the fish absorbed through the gills and skin. It chilled the fish out. > moved around 80-100 fewer seconds during the trial > 2 to 3 fewer angry lunges at the stranger fish Not all aggression was turned off, but the explosive attacks dropped. A lot of studies show mushrooms help with sadness and fear in mice and humans. Aggression has been understudied in modern psychedelic research, especially in social settings. Why it matters. A fish brain is old in evolutionary terms. Fish and mammals split off from each other something like 400 million years ago. If psilocybin can dial down aggression in a fish brain, the wiring for aggression has probably been conserved across that distance. The same brake could exist in humans.

A case report published in Frontiers in Neuroscience describes something that, by everything we thought we knew about Alzheimer's, should not have been possible. An 80-year-old woman. Ten years of Alzheimer's. Five years reduced to single syllables. Chronic incontinence. Dependent on caregivers for nearly everything. This is the stage of the disease we consider irreversible — the lights, we assume, are simply gone. Her family gave her a single high dose of psilocybin — 5 grams of mushrooms. She slept for about 19 hours. Then she woke up. And she began to talk. For hours. She told autobiographical stories. She recalled memories no one had heard from her in years. She recognized family members. She cracked jokes. Her mobility, her communication, her bladder control — functions lost for years — temporarily returned. Then, over the following days, it faded again. Let me be clear about what this is and isn't, because a story this extraordinary demands honesty. This is a single case report. One patient. Not a trial. It was not placebo-controlled. We cannot rule out coincidence or other factors. Nobody should try this — high-dose psilocybin in a frail 80-year-old is genuinely dangerous, and it is not a treatment. The authors themselves call for rigorous studies. But here is why it stops me cold, and why it matters far beyond one woman. We have long assumed advanced Alzheimer's represents permanent destruction — that the abilities are gone because the neurons that held them are gone. This case suggests something different and profound: that some of those capacities may not be destroyed, but disconnected. Locked behind broken network connectivity that psilocybin — which acts on serotonin receptors, drives neuroplasticity, and temporarily reorganizes how brain regions talk to each other — briefly reopened. The person was still in there. The door was just shut. I've written about this same pattern elsewhere in medicine — psychedelics unlocking function that disease had hidden rather than erased. The recurring theme of this era: what we called permanent may sometimes be dormant. This one case proves nothing. It does something arguably more important. It asks a question we didn't know we were allowed to ask: How much of an aging, failing brain is truly gone — and how much is simply waiting to be switched back on?