Sunday, December 24, 2006

Blog Your Blessings Sunday: Caffeine

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

Actually I'm not sure if this should really be a ode to Morning Thunder tea, No-doze or coffee. Whatever you call and however you take it, it boils down to one thing: the toxic substance called caffeine.

Yes, toxic. Plants use caffeine as a natural pesticide to keep bugs and the like off of them. In human beings the oral (as in drinking) LD50 (dosage at which 50% of the recipients would die) is somewhere between 10 and 40g. For the sake of comparison, strychnine, a "very toxic" substance, has an LD50 somewhere between 50 to 160mg – about 1/1000th of the LD50 for caffeine.

Without this marvelous substance I would not be the jittery, twitching person I am today. I would not have passed as many exams, written required papers, given presentations, performed emergency cleaning, completed projects and generally achieved all that I have.

Yes I owe it all to caffeine, the wonder drug :-)

Tags: , , , , , .

Sources:

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now that I think about it, there are some similarities between melange and caffeine...

Unknown said...

Coffee!!
Coffee!!
Coffee!!

I like you so much now that I put you on the mainpage of my blog ;)

Whatever said...

Thanks Stev (sip), now that I've had some coffee (sip), mind you I'm not addicted (sip), raarrrr (twitch), (sip), what were we talking about again?

Blue Panther said...

I find it really hard to begin my day if I have not had a cup of tea to wake my senses up. So, this year I have resolved to quit the habbit.:)

Unknown said...

whatever,
of coz we arent addicted (gulp-belch-sigh of satisfaction)

bluepanther,
why give up on a good thing? :P

Whatever said...

Waking up isn't my problem. Now staying awake...that's a problem. Once (twitch) I've had enough (hehe) caffeine (twitch) however (darts eyes around) I'm much, much, much more alert!

Blue: (spoken in a rush) if you are giving up coffee does that, like, I could have your share?!! Take your time to think about it, but I asked first!!