 |
The world's oldest piece of grass, perfectly preserved inside
a piece of amber unearthed in
Myanmar, was
discovered by researchers.
Ancient fungus similar to ergot, a fungus involved in the original synthesis of
LSD, was
also
discovered in the amber fossil.
The discovery suggests this psychotropic fungus has evolved alongside, for millions and millions of years, the grasses and cereal grains that came to make up much of the modern diet.
"It seems like ergot has been involved with animals and humans almost forever, and now we know that this fungus literally dates back to the earliest evolution of grasses," George Poinar, Jr., an amber expert at Oregon State University, explained in a recent press release.
"This is an important discovery that helps us understand the timeline of grass development, which now forms the basis of the human food supply in such crops as corn, rice or wheat," Poinar added. "But it also shows that this parasitic fungus may have been around almost as long as the grasses themselves, as both a toxin and natural hallucinogen."
It is likely dinosaurs consumed the
hallucinogen long before humans ever ate grasses.
"There's no doubt in my mind that it would have been eaten by sauropod dinosaurs, although we can't know what exact effect it had on them."
|
