Natural Cocaine Production in Plants Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Natural Cocaine Production in Plants - Essay Example The coca plant has similar biochemical properties as those that produce alkaloids. The coca plant belongs to a group of plants with natural alkaloids, or nitrogen-containing compounds that produce diverse effects on the physiology of humans. The alkaloid compounds in these plants are proven to have strong pharmacological effects on people and are known to contain nicotine, caffeine, quinine, morphine, atropine, strychnine, and the illegal stimulant compound cocaine. The plants that contain alkaloids include the Solanaceae or potato family, the Brassicaceae or mustard family, and the Erythroxylaceae or coca family, to which the coca plant belongs. The close relatedness of these plants is not only justified by the fact that they all contain alkaloid compounds but also by the fact that they had a common ancestor around 120 million years ago and that the alkaloid compounds that they contain obey similar biochemical pathways. The significance of this fact is that if one were to uncover th e details of the natural synthesis of cocaine, then it is possible to study it from the point of view of the other plants to which the coca plant is related (How Plants Make Cocaine, 2012). In the experiment conducted by researchers of the Max Planck Institute, in order to understand better how protein is naturally made by the coca plant, the synthesis of alkaloids in a particular species of the Solanaceae family was compared with the biochemical synthesis of cocaine in the coca plant (Secrets of Natural Cocaine Production Revealed, 2012).

Epistemologhy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Epistemologhy - Essay Example A good example was the challenges that people had back in the 50s when the radio program, "The War of the Worlds" was played. This was a popular novel back in 1938 and on Sunday, October 30, 1938 at 8 p.m. this radio broadcast was done. Because people relied on the radio to give them the "correct" news, they believed that the broadcast was "true". This created a panic across the nation and people called radio and television stations to find out what they should do (Rosenberg 1). This example shows how it is difficult to know what is "real" and what is "not real" when we are talking about knowledge. Descartes had a lot to say about knowledge and it is difficult for us to truly understand what knowledge is and how it is used in the world. On the one hand, we can say that someone "knows" something but we cannot really say how the individual knows what they know. In thinking about knowledge we have to go deeper and wonder whether knowledge is a belief or it is something that we learn. Descartes tells us that we must look at reality and determine what that is first before we can say what knowledge is and we must understand it without doubt. Descartes ideas seem rational although they are somewhat difficult to explain.(Newman par. 1). He believed that if any thought could be subjected to any doubt then it was false (Skirry par. 2). Although this idea has some validity it is this researchers opinion that his idea does not go far enough. If we were to categorize thoughts it would be difficult to tell which ones were "true" and which ones were "false" because there is always room for d oubt. In fact, most people would suggest that their way of thinking was "true" no matter what it was and therefore our thoughts would be different on a variety of issues. Descartes had some of the information but not all of it (although we do have to think about what was available to him