Snooping Around

Menthol formula Eating a peppermint or a slice of mint cake, especially during a hot day,  is such a pleasurable experience. Feeling that fantastic sense of cold is one of the reasons we love these sweets so much. And obviously the characteristic flavor is loved everywhere. But why mint tastes cold? is temperature really involved in this process or maybe is just a trick of our body? Let’s find out… Menthol Crystals Most of you knows that the responsible is Menthol, an organic compound normally obtained from all mint plants. Of course nowadays, with the extreme high demand and the huge amount of products is used in, menthol is synthetically produced in form of a waxy, crystalline substance that can be both clear or white. At room temperature is solid, but few degrees are enough to make it melt. What happens when we eat a product that contains menthol? Well, our mouth contains some specific receptors that responds to this chemical compound. The receptor we’re tal...

Sometimes our brain is not completely perfect. All over the world there are tons of molecules that have the power of fooling our natural complexity. For example, using a part of us that never sleeps…our constant search for food. All you have to do is look up at the spices you have at home and, if you have a little bottle with the words “Spicy Pepper” written on it, you’ve been fooled more than you could imagine. This because we’re going to discover the secret of Capsaicin, the Spicy Cheater. As some of you might have deduced, this molecule can be found in almost all kinds of peppers. Most of the capsaicin in peppers (which is a fruit, not a vegetable) is mostly focused around the seeds. The plant uses it as a defense mechanism against potential eaters and threats, and this clever method is actually more than useful. Except for specific animals, like birds, that eat seeds without destroying them, so they can spread them all around with feces. This means new plants and great advantag...

If I ask you a definition of love, what would you say? Well, this is an unanswerable question without a doubt. We can give plenty of descriptions about this, and one I personally like is the quote/struck phrase: Love is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention towards other things it will come and softly sit on your shoulder. And be careful when you get it: hold it too much and you’ll squeeze it, don’t hold it enough and it’ll fly away. Pretty mawkish, isn't it? We can say that love is just a way to complicate our lives. But we can also talk about love like a philosopher would do, just like the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who said this about love: Love is a social code in which two people exchange expectations for the future. In a relationship you need to show your unique and irreplaceable self to the other. And If the other loves you, he recognize this self in your eyes. Just like a mirror. And the meanin...

Awww! That cup of coffee. When you grab it, pouring that dark liquid into your mouth in early morning, you are sure it will help you against sleep. It's commonly known this is caused by caffeine, a chemical widely used for its awakening properties. Caffeine has been used as a drug for thousands of years, both in medicine and in daily life.  There are several plants, cultivated or harvested, that contain this substance, but today caffeine is added to many foods, more than you think. Despite the increase in caffeine use in recent times, many people have little knowledge of the overall effects it has on their bodies. So, let's start with this new "Discovery Central". The word Caffeine derives of course from the world coffee because coffee plants were one the first discovered ones which had a huge amount of it. Caffeine’s chemical name is 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, based on its formula,  C 8 H 10 N 4 O 2 , and in its pure form caffeine is a very bitter white powde...

Welcome back to all my Snoopers. This time I'll be giving you discoveries, mainly scientific ones. This new collection of articles called "Discovery Central" will be your link to the origins of the most common and used chemicals around. And the one I'm going to talk about this time is probably one of the most effective painkiller ever used. To be properly clear, Morphine (formula on the right) is an analgesic drug derived from opium but far more reliable and powerful. Like other chemicals of the same family, called opioids, morphine acts directly on the central nervous system (CNS) to relieve pain. As everybody know, it's highly addictive and the abuse can reverse the effects fairly rapidly, worsening pain through Hyperalgesia. The discovery of Morphine changed pharmacology and pain relief. But to start talking about it, we have to begin with the origins and use of opium. Derived from the seedpods of the poppy, opium (scientifically called Papaver somnifer...