Did a "witch's herb" drive the Berserkers to frenzy?

If, in your youth, you were reckless enough to try out psychoactive substances, then you may know what it feels like to have your body and mind completely under the control of a chemical occupying power. The intoxicated sees and hears only what the surprised brain chemistry pretends to him; all his senses and traits are subject to the dictates of the active substances circulating in his bloodstream. He turns, you could say, into a biochemically controlled machine.

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Issue 40/2019

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An example of how thoroughly such a transformation can succeed is evidently offered by the legendary Berserkers of the Middle Ages. From these Nordic warriors, the contemporaries told incredible stories. The berserkers knew there was no fear in the battle, they plunged into every carnage, terrible howling, blind with rage - and barely able to distinguish friend from foe.

Research has long been looking for an explanation for the special state of emergency in which these human combat machines apparently fell into disrepair. First evidence provided the symptoms, as described in historical sources: The berserkers allegedly often shivered with cold; her teeth rattled; as if in intoxication, they bit into their shields. The faces of the strange warriors were red and swollen. This out-of-sorts could probably last for 24 hours. Afterwards the exhausted ones sank into a state of dizziness for days.

The Norse Berserker Warriors

Many researchers have therefore suspected the cause of the intoxicating pleasure of toadstools. However, their effect probably only fits a part of the berserker behavior. The aggressive madness is not typical of the fly agaric, argues now the Slovenian botanist Karsten Fatur. He sees in the black henbane, Hyoscyamus niger, a far better candidate for pharmacologically controlled disinfestation. It is not without reason that this poisonous nightshade was known centuries ago as a witch's wort or devil's wort: it produces strong delusions.

In addition, it dampens, unlike the fly agaric, the sensation of pain - certainly beneficial in medieval hewing and stinging. Previously, henbane was used not only as an intoxicant, but also as an analgesic drug and narcotic. However, because of its difficult-to-control toxicity, this chemical genome of natural medicine came to waste over time - just as the difficult-to-control berserking gave way to more technically efficient methods of warfare.

warmly

Her Manfred Dworschak

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My reading recommendations this week

• As a child, did you mix secret citrus juice with lemon juice to exchange highly conspiratorial messages with your friends? Chinese researchers have recently used a state-of-the-art waterjet printer for such purposes
• If you still want to eat bananas in the future, you may have to make friends with certain methods of genetic engineering. Currently, a devastating fungus spreads in many growing areas. Researchers are seeking relief by, for example, introducing genes from wild bananas into the genetic material of endangered varieties.
• Here you can see from which delightful bottles small Bavarians used to chew their cow's milk 3000 years ago.
• In Thailand, there are more and more tiger zoos, in which the animals are kept in bad conditions and abused for questionable pleasures of the visitors.
• Google has done a computational task in just over three minutes with a novel quantum computer, for which the fastest conventional computer would have taken nearly 10,000 years. Here a physicist explains clearly what this breakthrough means.

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Quiz*

• How much does the thickest tree in the world weigh?
• Which chess master competed against most opponents at the same time?
• What is a turret bit?

* The answers can be found at the bottom of the newsletter.

Picture of the week

A. Romeo / ESA

Six astronauts from all over the world are practicing the tricky coexistence on the International Space Station on an adventurous excursion (far right is the German astronaut Alexander Gerst). They are currently undergoing a three-week training program of the European Space Agency Esa in the rugged rocky landscape of the Slovenian Karst Plateau. Various missions are on the plan: The Skystriker roam through caves, they explore underground lakes - and train how to solve problems in a team.

footnote

Two times the speed of sound can reach the pressed carbon dioxide that escapes through the neck of the bottle when uncorking champagne, even if only for a fraction of a second. Shock waves, which also occur in the jet of supersonic aircraft, arise directly above the opening. French researchers discovered this with the help of a high-speed camera, which makes 12,000 shots per second.

MIRROR + recommendation list Science

• Medicine: Doctors prescribe painkillers that can make you dependent, although in many cases this would not be necessary.
• Mobility: Scientists and start-ups are researching the high-performance battery of the future.
• Climate: Meteorologist Mojib Latif explains how ocean warming works - and how sea level rise could spiral out of control.
• History: A historian has reclaimed one of the most important libraries in Europe from the Vatican.

Quiz answers: The "Árbol del Tule", a bald cypress in the Mexican town of Santa María del Tule, comes with a diameter of 14 meters to a weight of about 636 tons - as much as eight medium-sized diesel locomotives. / Iranian grandmaster Ehsan Ghaem Maghami played against 604 opponents at the same time in February 2011 - after 25 hours he had defeated 580 of them / The teeth of the sharks is so called, because in her jaw as in a magazine several rows of finished teeth are available, which Move past failed biter.