the.com/caffeine
The world's favorite way to lie to your brain about being tired.
means A naturally occurring stimulant found in coffee, tea, and cacao that blocks the brain's tiredness signals so you feel alert.
from Straightforward chemistry-lab naming: 'caffeine' was coined in German as 'Koffein' in the early 1800s, built from 'Kaffee' (coffee) plus the chemical suffix '-ine' used for alkaloids. It was first isolated from coffee beans, so the name is literally just 'the stuff in coffee' — scientists later found the same molecule in tea leaves (where it was briefly called 'theine' before chemists realized it was identical to caffeine) and in cacao, but coffee got naming rights first.
- mechanism
- Blocks adenosine, the molecule that makes you feel sleepy
- half-life
- Takes 5-6 hours to clear half your dose
- most consumed
- World's most widely used psychoactive drug, unregulated
- lethal dose
- You'd need about 100 cups fast to die