Mood enhancement trivia...

[helen99]

I just received the Thinkgeek catalog, which has a line of teeshirts with caffeine molecules printed on them (I have one). Recently they've added a chocolate molecule to their line of shirts. The two molecules looked so much alike that at first I thought they were identical. There is a difference, though. The first image is caffeine, and the second one is chocolate.

Comments

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

They're...what, one molecule apart? H3C instead of H? (I never took chemistry. I have no idea what either of those are. Is H Hydrogen? It can't be Helium.)

[historychick49.livejournal.com]

Wow. I had no idea chocolate and caffeine were so similar molecularly.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Technically, that molecule isn't "chocolate," but theobromine, an alkaloid found in chocolate. Theobromine is also found in small amounts in the kola nut and tea plant (oh, and Wikipedia tells me it's in guarana berry too).</nitpick>

Mmm... chocolate.

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

So technically caffeine is methyltheobromine? Nifty :D (And it does explain why they have similar, if not identical, effects.)

(And yes, Wikipedia does at least seem to confirm the chemical structure of caffeine as methyltheobromine, of a sort; caffeine article notes specifically that most plants that naturally contain caffeine also contain the related xanthine alkaloids theobromine (which not only is the stuff that makes chocolate Happy Stuff but is also a mild bronchodilator--you can give it to rats with respiratory problems, and I've found if I'm feeling particularly bronchial-cruddy some 90-100 percent cacao stuff does quite the trick to clear my chest out) and theophylline (which is typically used for asthma and is much stronger than either caffeine or theobromine).

[toxicelement.livejournal.com]

Is it sad that I saw this and thought, "okay, so that one's caffeine, and that one is... wait, what IS that? hrm" -- though I guess, it'd be pretty bad if i didnt recognize the caffeine off the bat. I'm not sure if having it tattooed upon my person makes this better or worse. haha