N-Methylphenethylamine (NMPEA), positional isomer of amphetamine, found in nature and also endogenous? A plant containing it may also contain DMT and Methamphetamine (and be growing in your back yard).

Wikipedia for NMPEA:

"PEA and NMPEA are both alkaloids that are found in a number of different plant species as well.[5] Some Acacia species, such as A. rigidula, contain remarkably high levels of NMPEA (~2300–5300 ppm).[6] NMPEA is also present at low concentrations (< 10 ppm) in a wide range of foodstuffs.[7]"

That was one of the primary parts that caught my eye. What is the effects of this substance? It may not be too active orally...

NMPEA is a pressor, with 1/350 x the potency of epinephrine.[17]

As with PEA, NMPEA is metabolized relatively rapidly by monoamine oxidases during first pass metabolism;[3][18] both compounds are preferentially metabolized by MAO-B.[3][18]

If it is vaporized or injected, what are the effects like? Euphoria? Stimulation? Obviously there are things that could be combined with it, orally, to inhibit the process that breaks it down...

N-Metyl-Phenylethylamine's half-life is very short. .It is metabolized by MAO-A, MAO-B, aldehyde dehydrogenase and dopamine-beta-hydroxylase. If you like to get long effect take an MAO inhibitor (MAOI) like Phenalzine

When the initial phenylethylamine brain concentration is low, brain levels can be increased 1000-fold when taking an MAO inhibitor (MAOI) and by 3times when the initial concentration is high.

Phenethylamine, similar to amphetamine in its action, releases norepinephrine and dopamine.

Amphetamine

NMPEA

                                                   

What else may be combined with it to make it stronger, make the effects more pronounced, or to maybe even alter it slightly into something more viable for recreational purposes?

It is listed in some places as aiding fat burning, meaning it may be available in some dietary supplements, which would not be surprising.

Then, here is the real gem I found researching this so far (and a commentary by Shulgin!)

In 1997[1] and 1998,[2] researchers at Texas A&M University reported finding amphetamine and methamphetamine in the foliage of two Acacia species native to Texas, A. berlandieri and A. rigidula. Previously, both of these compounds had been thought to be human inventions.[3] Like methylphenidate (Ritalin), amphetamines also prevent the monoamine transporters for dopamine and norepinephrine from recycling them (called reuptake inhibition), which leads to increased amounts of dopamine and norepinephrine in synaptic clefts.

Now remember, A. Rigidula is the plant mentioned way up above this that contains NMPEA. What else does it contain?

Amines and Alkaloids:

phenethylamine N,N-dimethylphenethylamine N,N-dimethyl-"-methylphenethylamine p-hydroxyamphetamine tyramine 3-5-dimethoxytyramine 3,4-dimethoxy-5-hydroxy-$-phenethylamine hordenine N,N-dimethyldopamine tryptamine N,N-dimethyltryptamine N-methylmescaline nicotine anhalamine peyophorine nortryptyline 3-"-cumyl-1,3,4-oxadiazolidine-2,5-dione p-hydroxypipecolamide 4-methyl-2-pyridinamine

N-methylphenethylamine amphetamine methamphetamine p-methoxyamphetamine N-methyltyramine candicine dopamine N-methyldopamine 3-methoxytyramine N-methyltryptamine mescaline trichocereine nornicotine anahalidine mimosine (methyl ester) musk ambrette pipecolamide 1,4-benzezediamine

Phytoestrogens:

octylphenol \ aristolone (Z)-9-octadecenoic acid (Z,Z,Z)-9,12,15-octadecatrienoic acid 3b-acetoxy-17-methyl-5a-18-abeoandrost-13-ene

nonylphenol 3b-cholest-5-en-3-ol (Z,Z)-9,12,-octadecanoic acid

4-Methoxyamphetamine

If you read this properly... then this plant contains methamphetamine, as well as DMT... It also contains 4-Methoxyamphetamine (A schedule I substance, DMT is also Schedule I).

The real kicker though is that Amphetamine and Methamphetamine were thought to be MAN MADE substances, not found in nature. Here is a full commentary by Shulgin in a Question/Answer format:

Question: Are you familiar with Acacia berlandieri and A. rigidula which were noted to contain various a-methyl-b-phenethylamines? Do you have any ideas as to what the botanical origins of these structural carbon skeletons might be? The literature citations are PHYTOCHEM. (1998), 49(5), 1377 and PHYTOCHEM. (1997), 46(2), 249.

Answer: I am familiar with the literature concerning these two West Texas Acacia species, but not with the plants themselves. I had both these PHYTOCHEMISTRY papers in my Acacia file but I must admit that I have some very mixed feelings about them.

What caught my curiosity immediately was the casual indifference shown to what is certainly an extraordinary discovery. Here, amongst some 40 or so alkaloids found in each of these two species, there were five amphetamines that had heretofore been thought to be inventions of man. Two of these are Schedule II drugs, Amphetamine and Methamphetamine. Two are Schedule I drugs, N,N-Dimethylamphetamine and 4-Methoxyamphetamine. And the fifth one is a major human metabolite of Amphetamine, 4-Hydroxyamphetamine. To my knowledge, none of these had ever before been reported as being natural plant alkaloids. This unprecedented discovery elicited only a passing line of comment in the earlier of the two papers.

My first thoughts as to origin were directed towards the well known natural hydroxylated amphetamines such as norephedrine, ephedrine and N-methylephedrine. I know that ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, frequent precursors in the illegal synthesis of methamphetamine, can be reduced to methamphetamine as an artifact of analysis. The sample insertion conditions of the gas chromatograph can effect this conversion. But then, there was no mention of any of these hydroxylated alkaloids as being present in either Acacia.

Might a contaminated round-bottomed flask have been purchased at a garage sale outside an abandoned meth-lab and served as the source of these "man-made" compounds? Unlikely, even in Texas.

Even more dramatic, one of these amphetamines, the 4-Methoxyamphetamine, is the increasingly notorious PMA that is appearing as one of the lethal "Ecstasy" offerings in the rave scene.

Several months ago I tried to contact, individually, the two principal authors, by both e-mail and personal snail-mail, and I have received no response as yet.

There is certainly precedent for a drug which was originally man-made, to be discovered in a plant. N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) was first synthesized by Manske, in Canada, in the 1930s. It was over twenty years later that it was discovered in a plant from South America. But such an event usually evokes considerable commentary. Here it seems that an exciting story is being ignored. Am I missing something?

-- Dr. Shulgin

Yes, what is he missing? If this is true, this is a rather ground-breaking discovery. Is it well known that methamphetamine and emphetamine, along with DMT and all these other substances are found within this singe plant?

N,N,-Dimethyltryptamine

Granted some of the data may be incorrect, but I'd like to first find a source debunking or attempting to debunk this data before I would go that far.

Mescaline

What are the concentrations of these substances in this plant? I know the DMT can't be too high of a concentration, as I've never heard of this plant being used as a source for DMT the way Mimosa Hostilis and a few others are used. If the concentration was high, it was be involved in popular teks...

Wikipedia comments:

A phytochemical study of V. rigidula[6] by workers at the Texas A & M University Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Uvalde, TX, reported the presence of over forty alkaloids, including low amounts (up to ~ 15 ppm) of several amphetamines that had previously been found by the same research group in the related species Senegalia berlandieri,[7] but which otherwise are known only as products of laboratory synthesis. Compounds found in the highest concentrations (ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand ppm) were phenylethylamine, N-methylphenethylamine, tyramine and N-methyltyramine. Other notable compounds reported were N,N-dimethyltryptamine, mescaline, amphetamine, methamphetamine and nicotine, although these were found in low concentrations (e.g. mescaline at 3-28 ppm).

The presence of such an unprecedented chemical range of psychoactive compounds, including ones not previously found in nature, in a single plant species has led to the suggestion that some of these findings may have resulted from cross-contamination or were possibly artifacts of the analytical technique.[8]

Why has this not been further tested, in all of these years?

Where are the A. rigidula teks?

Finally... secure

Yes! I have finally been able to secure everything and offer encrypted protection via SSL through my server. This process took me longer than I'd like to admit and should be fairly easy and straight-forward on most server environments. There are also ways, as I found out, to be able to do this for free, instead of having to pay some kind of certificate issuer or signing authority. 

While there exist ways to "self sign" certificates for a server, I still chose to use a third party to complete the process. If you also run a server, I recommend researching into letsencrypt, which assuming you have the proper Virtual Hosts set up with your HTTPD, like Apache2, then with a couple of configuration files and then a few CLI entries, you can be on your way to fully utilizing https:// - I've even gone an extra step and *forced* all connections to my server that attempt to use http:// to convert to https://.

Now I can finish working on some of the fun projects I had going before for some companies and even plan to launch a browser-based game soon. I have actually had it in development for a while in various incarnations, but will reveal more details about it in the near future. One of the recent stumbling blocks I had recently was enabling SSL... that and I tried to originally program the game to fully utilize AJAX techniques. I've limited their usage now, as they were crippling the development.

Server maintenance

While I attempt to enable SSL, there may be some errors with pages loading and a few other things on www.666igma.com - this process should be completed within the next few hours, so just be patient.

Secure, Contain, Protect.

What is SCP, or "Secure, Contain, Protect." AKA "Special Containment Procedures"? Essentially, SCP is a web-based collaborative writing project. According to Wikipedia:

The stories generated by the project describe the exploits of the fictional Foundation, supposedly responsible for containing individuals, entities, locations, and objects that violate natural law (referred to as SCPs). The main written works on the SCP Foundation website are documents written in the style of structured internal documentation about the SCPs contained by the fictional organization. These documents are labeled in the format "SCP-#", for example "SCP-2722". These documents usually begin with the number of the item, then the "class", then the item's "Special Containment Procedures", which describe the containment specifications for the specific SCP. Next, the item is described. This section is the main body of the document. There are often additional sections at the bottom of the documents. The documents are organized by thousands, called the "Series" of SCPs.

This may remind you a bit of Creepypasta, on the the alternative, something similar to Reddit's "No Sleep" subsection. The main difference is that SCP stories often leak elsewhere on the internet and have a style of writing that gives them an air of authenticity or authority. This is thanks to the "academic" nature in which most topics are presented.


That video was uploaded just this month and already has nearly 500,000 views. There are several other SCP videos with millions of views. Credit for the video goes to several people, all of which are referenced on the actual page if you are interested.

My only complaint about some of the SCP entries is that there may not have been as difficult of a vetting process in place previously, allowing some of the earlier entries to make it in without much scrutiny. The actual procedure for getting you writing to be added to the SCP compendium is rather tedious, but does hold true to the type of "crowd-sourced" writing platform which you expect it to be.

In addition, some items are rather dull, cheesy or not very creepy or disturbing in any way. If you're looking for something to truly scare you, SCP will likely fall short in most instances... that is, unless you come across something from SCP and are unaware what SCP actually is and are exposed to it surreptitiously.

If you are curious about the origins of SCP or the community behind it, I will also quote the "Community" section of the Wikipedia entry:

The SCP Foundation series originated in the "paranormal" /x/ forum of 4chan, where the first special containment procedure, SCP-173, was posted as a creepypasta thread during 2007.^[6] Many other special containment procedures were followed shortly after, inspired by SCP-173. In 2008, the SCP Foundation series was transferred to its current Wikidot website.^[6]Wikidot users are required to submit an application before they are allowed to contribute content.^[6] Writers from the Daily Dot and Bustle have noted that the website maintains strict quality control standards, and that sub-par content tends to be quickly deleted.^[6][15] Internal forums are used by members of the website to evaluate and provide constructive criticism on posted stories.^[16]The Wikidot website routinely holds creative writing contests. For example, in November 2014, the SCP Foundation held a "Dystopia Contest" in which its members were encouraged to submit writings about the Foundation set in a bleak or degraded world.^[17]The SCP Foundation maintains a forum on Reddit and a role-playing community.^[6][18] Notable contributors to the SCP Foundation include screenwriter Max Landis.^[19]

Surprise! 4chan was involved in the creation and the entire existence of SCP is thanks to creepypasta. This entry would not be complete if I did not include a quote (once again, from Wikipedia) that highlights examples of "Secure, Contain, Protect." cases:

Examples of contained SCPs

SCP-087, with SCP-087-1 in the background.

• SCP-055: SCP-055 is something that causes anyone who examines it to forget its various characteristics, thus making it indescribable except in terms of what it is not.^[6]
• SCP-087: SCP-087 is a staircase that appears to descend downwards forever.^[7] The staircase is inhabited by SCP-087-1, which is described as a face without a mouth, pupils or nostrils.^[8]
• SCP-108: SCP-108 is a Nazi bunker system that is only accessible through a portal found in a woman's nose.^[9]
• SCP-173: SCP-173 is a humanoid statue composed of rebar, concrete and Krylon spray paint.^[6] It is stationary when directly observed, but attacks people when line of sight with it is broken.^[7]
• SCP-294: SCP-294 is a coffee machine that can dispense almost anything that does or can exist in liquid form.^[7]
• SCP-426: SCP-426 is a toaster which can only be referred to in the first person.^[7]
• SCP-1171: SCP-1171 is a home whose windows are always covered in condensation; by writing in the condensation on the glass, it is possible to communicate with an extra-dimensional entity whose windows are likewise covered in condensation. This entity bears significant hostility towards humans, but does not know that the Foundation members are humans.^[6]
• SCP-1609: SCP-1609 is a mulch that teleports into the lungs of anyone who approaches it in an aggressive fashion or while wearing a uniform. It was previously a peaceful chair that teleported to whichever nearby person felt the need to sit down, but it entered its current aggressive state after being inserted into a woodchipper by a rival organization.^[6]

If you are looking for a fun read, or a good couple of videos to watch to pass some time, you can explore into SCP. Some entries are much better than others and then there are literary types of "games" that exist as to, for instance, the true nature of SCP-001, or what exactly SCP-000 is, with lots of false leads and alternative explanations. 

Unfortunately, the writing style can also get in the way of making an SCP truly engaging for the reader. There were even a few entries which I disliked entirely because (thanks to the crowd-sourced material), I felt as if they were authored in glaringly obvious ways that made them sub-par or entirely uninteresting (religious overtones, etc.; generally turn me off in relation to stuff like this, and you think SCP would be entirely free of that, but a few entries manage to sneak them in).

Tats TopVideos has two interesting entries on Youtube that catalogue a few of the more entertaining SCP items. I've linked the first and certainly you can find the second after watching this particular one (which currently has over 3 million views):

Trap House track...

For those of you unfamiliar, there is a bit of a play on words here.

"Trap" and "House" are both genres of music, and a trap house is also slang in some areas for a drug haven. In addition, my naming of the track alludes to Deadmau5, and I've actually called it Trap Hau5 Five, because I laugh my ass off when my mother refers to Deadmau5, as "Dead Mau Five", which I have heard plenty of other people do as well, so she is not singularly out of touch, there were a few generations before us, I think. I'm no historian, though.

Let me just type some more uselessness here as well... for those that do not know, Trap is a type of music you are probably thinking "Trap Music" is Gucci, Jeezy or Gotti.  Nope. It is a type of electronic music. From my experience it is usually at 140bpm, but the drums are half that. Heavy bass, syncopated, uses a lot of vocal chopping and slurring (something I'm personally not a fan of). I like the dark and gritty feel of the trap genre, it is literally like the gangster music of EDM. So that said, what blasphemy could I possibly unleash against it when I try and combine it with House music?

It doesn't sound too bad! Now keep in mind, this track also goes and takes advantage of several other mainstays in my production and I'm always trying new things. Just so happens that recently, I'm trying to "neuro everything". This concept came from working with Reese bass line techniques that evolved into Neuro... but now I'm just seeing what all I might be able to apply it to and how it might sound.

A normal person, Reese, detunes some saw waves together. Later, people start putting FX and things  over these detuned saw waves and call it neuro. Then I come along like "duhhrr herp plz to let me neurofunk teh hi hats and haz cheezburger" and you get stuff like Trap Hau5 Five.

Enjoy!