There’s a pretty good fantasy detective game called Dragon Detective, where you use all 5 senses on most parts of a crime scene. Use of “Taste” is originally treated as a joke by the coleads, but since the main character is immune to most poison and has a fine sense of taste, he really does lick everything for details.
I have a friend who had ONE geology class in university, majored in physical geography. But he is known as the rocks guy, since nobody knows what his major actually is.
I was on an island holiday recently, where the most prominent rock formation is simply called “the rock”. I sent him one of these perspective trick photos where it locks like I’m licking ‘the rock’ with the message: “me, a real geologist”.
He was mildly amused.On a more “licking” note than an “LSD” note - in geology 101, had a group exam where we had to identify mineral samples. Group spent 50% of the total time waffling on deciding how to identify the last two samples - salt and quartz. We knew one was one, and the other the other. Finally got tired of arguments about clarity or cleavage or whatever other nonsense we had in that elective. I had places to be. Licked one. Then the other. Second one was salt. Probably wasn’t the first college student to lick those samples either.
Licensed Professional Geologist here, and licking is a totally valid method for distinguishing between mineral hand samples that have very similar properties otherwise. For instance, halite (NaCl, aka table salt) and sylvite (KCl) are isomorphous, which means they have the exact same crystal structure and are very difficult to distinguish using traditional methods. Halite tastes like salt, but sylvite makes your tongue tingle when licked. Our mineralogy professor told is it’s the only reliable way to differentiate the two without actual chemistry analysis.
Licking is a chemical analysis, albeit a crude one
I wouldn’t call a chemical touch sensor optimized by eons of evolution to differentiate molecules from one another crude.
In some ways it’s no more crude than looking at it, right?
You PIERCE my privacy with your gaze. I feel violated!
You ASSAULT me with your tongue. I feel violated!
Yep, both senses seem equally crude 😄
Couldn’t you just scratch one with your keys?
Between halite and quartz, absolutely. Halite and sylvite have the Moh’s hardness of 2, so your keys would scratch both.
Nope, geologists are commonly associated with licking rocks, and basically for the reason you’ve shared.
Wouldn’t a scratch test have worked just as well? Quartz is extremely hard, halite is relatively soft. Scratch one against the other, and whichever one is damaged is salt.
Rub it against your phone screen and you’ll find out pretty quick
It scratches at a level salt, with deeper grooves at a level quarts
Hell, I had a geology lab where we were explicitly told we’d have to identify minerals by taste.
Unfortunately one of the other criteria was testing how a mineral reacted to acid… Which was listed higher on the worksheet…
Didn’t taste that bad, as far as acids go.
I’m pretty sure that’s just how scientists did things up until like 1952.
Gneiss
man, how do you even get LSD these days
shit now we got cops on lemmy
this may be my most heavily engaged comment on threadiverse. 😅
You gotta go to the source: the CIA.
Go to a music festival. The United States is flooded with LSD right now.
No, it is most definitely not. It’s flooded with gel tabs of cheap synthetics.
There is a laundry list of odorless tasteless microgram dose psychedelics that are extremely comparable to LSD and indistinguishable except to an extremely advanced psychonaut.
If you go to a festival and take drugs and think that it’s real LSD, that’s laughable ignorance. Statistically, it’s almost impossible to find LSD.
I go to Shambhala and they do free drug testing. Every LSD I get, I get it tested. The Ehrlich reagent test turns purple for indoline structures and it’s so much easier to get LSD than the other LSD prodrugs that would cause this to be purple, like 1P-LSD, 1V-LSD, or 1B-LSD. Research from both DanceSafe and The Loop show that actual and pure LSD dominates over synthetics at music fests. I’d love to see your sources because I’m intrigued.
Its real. This isn’t 2009-2014 anymore. People have test kits at festivals too that will test what you’ve acquired for free.
I’ve been taking psychedelics for almost 20 years now.
I’m unsure where your statistics is coming from.
The niche bass music scene is flooded with real dose.
We had drug prevention class (as a project week) in high school. One street worker guy just informed us, what is commonly used and what these drugs do, their dangers and safety precautions, if we decide to take them anyways. That was way better, and more effective, than the “drugs are bad”-speech the cop gave the other day.
LSD was the only one, that sounded somewhat intriguing to me. Never tried it, because I’m worried about bad trips and possible permanent damage. What is your take on that?
I’d recommend doing research before taking psychedelics. Erowid is still a great source.
The common phrase is " set and setting " and its true. If you’re in a comfortable and familiar surrounding and your headspace is good, you will probably have a decent trip. Many times there will be a difficult period during the trip and that is part of the experience.
I’d also recommend mushrooms " psilocybin" as that is one of my favorites.
Also LSD last a long time, I love it but plan accordingly.
The best game of bowling I ever played was on 200ug of LSD. It does seem to activate your sensory experience in ways that give you greater ability sometimes.
The hard part is having it do that consistently. I strongly believe that research into lysergimides could lead to the discovery of a variation that makes you more coordinated and creative without the hallucinogenic effects.
There is mild historical proof that that early humans consumed grains contaminated with ergot (what lsd is derived off)on purpose before hunting.
The theory is that it gave them hightend senses to spot animals. In stoned ape theory this coincided with the beginning of creating language and art.
stoned ape theory
Fucking lol wiki
It’s garbage “science”, Lamarckian evolution for a new generation.
Yeah i don’t recommend taking that guys word on it.
I was careful with my wording for a reason.
The concept has some merit though, just leave it to actual scientists to verify such.
Ny times article from 1 week ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/science/scientists-discover-the-earliest-evidence-of-drug-use-in-really-old-teeth.html
“Human use of psychoactive plants, in particular, was a lot more common in the ancient past than we can appreciate at the moment,” said Adam Brumm, a professor of archaeology in the Australian Research Center for Human Evolution at Griffith University who led the study.“I think it was probably a very deeply rooted aspect of human behavior,” he added.
Dr. Brumm and his colleagues unearthed the jawbone and teeth of the ancient forager in 2017 at a cave called Leang Bulu Bettue. Although Sulawesi is home to the oldest known rock art in the world, dating back some 67,000 years, the discovery of the bones was the first time any skeletal remains of prehistoric humans had been found on the island.
highest grade in 3 years
Meaning accidentally got a few right?
My geology teacher encouraged us to taste the rocks. 🤷
Quarry. Better tasting because it’s mined.
Oh. My. God. You can’t go anywhere without the raw rocks people spreading their bullshit. There’s a reason we started pasteurizing rocks and I can’t believe we’re still debating it 180 years later. Fucking right wing media!
geo kisser
The best part was their final was a power point presentation.
The striking thing for me here is the final examination for a geology course is to identify rocks. Isn’t that like the most basic bit of geology?
