“What we found was nicotine in the leaves”. said scientist Ray Grimsbo. The plant grew off the tobacco roots and sucked up the nicotine, just like Tomacco on The Simpsons. The lab hasn’t tested if the actual tomato has nicotine in it yet, but they say it probably does. “Generally in the fruit there is more material concentrated because that’s what everything’s going through to produce the fruit for the next generation. I would expect there would be more.” And that would make the real life tomacco plant very poisonous. Rob Baur says he grew the tomacco plant just for fun, just to see if it would really work. ”

source : http://www.boingboing.net/2003/11/03/simpsons-fan-creates.html

Poisonous, maybe
Creating the freaky veggie wasn’t as easy as Homer made it look. Earlier in the summer Baur grafted a tobacco plant onto a tomato root and the graft fell off. He tried a few more times and finally got a tomacco that not only lived but thrived.
“The plant looks perfectly normal,” Baur said. “It’s blooming.”
The tomacco has even borne fruit: two red globes that look like regular tomatoes you would purée into marinara sauce.
But don’t eat them like they did on “The Simpsons.” Baur believes the tomacco fruits are poisonous because they may contain a fatal dose of nicotine.
“I left one of the tomaccos on the kitchen table and my wife yelled at me,” he said. “I have no idea what to do with these things. It’s like an atomic bomb. What do you do with them after you have set one off in the desert?”
Joran Viers, horticulture agent for the Bernalillo County Cooperative Extension Service, confirms that while such a graft would be difficult to do, it is possible. Tomatoes and tobacco belong to the same plant family, which also includes eggplant and the poisonous nightshade.
“I’m not sure why you would want to do that, though,” he said.
Viers also said he would be surprised if the tomacco fruit was poisonous. “With grafts, the fruit you get tends to be characteristic of the grafted-on part, not the root.”
Baur is about to find out if his tomacco is dangerous. On Friday he took the fruit to a forensics lab in nearby Portland, Ore., where its nicotine content was tested. The results will be back Monday.
The same lab tested the tomacco plant’s leaves last week and determined there was nicotine in the leaves, which means the tomacco plant is a true hybrid and not just a cartoon-inspired Frankenstein.
“Whether smoking them would, uh, fulfill a need, I don’t know. We didn’t burn them,” said Raymond Grimsbo, the forensic scientist who performed the test and director of Intermountain Forensic Laboratories.

World comes knocking
At least one commentator has accused Baur of having w-a-a-a-a-a-ay too much time on his hands.
But Baur said his tomacco experiment wasn’t just about being deliberately wacky, or about being a science geek with nothing better to do.
He said he liked the anti-tobacco message of the “Simpsons” tomacco episode, which ended with a tobacco company desperately trying to buy the tomacco formula from Homer.
“It shows tobacco companies for what they really are and how stupid it is that even though this stuff tastes bad, you’re addicted to it and will do almost anything to get it,” he said.
The local Fox affiliate, no doubt seeing rampant promotional possibilities for the jewel of the network’s lineup, did a story on Baur and his tomacco. Since then, the global media have descended on Baur’s town of Lake Oswego, Ore., population 30,576.
He has been interviewed by CNN, the BBC, an Israeli magazine and a Canadian TV station. News of the tomacco has also been all over the Web, on blogs, science and technology sites and “Simpsons” fan sites.
Baur is amazed by the response. “I got a patent once for a new way to ferment sludge,” he said. “No one from Albuquerque called me about that.”
But this is “The Simpsons.” And like you, Rob, we here in Albuquerque altered our world to make it more like the animated one we see on TV, in Matt Groening’s Springfield.
We, too, understand what it’s like to find truth in a cartoon.
Does Baur plan to bring any more “Simpsons” episodes to life? Maybe brew up a Flaming Moe?
“I’ll review my Simpsons DVDs and see if there’s any more ‘Simpsons’ science I can do,” he said.
Leanne Potts writes this column weekly for the Journal. She can be reached at lpotts@abqjournal.com.

source : http://www.abqjournal.com/shock/110279shock11-16-03.htm

He’s created “tomacco,” a bizarre cross between tobacco and tomatoes, after watching an episode in which Homer Simpson creates the addictive crop.

In the episode, Homer grows the hybrid by accident when he mixes the plants’ seeds together. The plant bears strange fruit that has a brown, gooey centre and that Homer’s son Bart declares taste “like cigarette butts.”

Yet Bart can’t resist eating more and soon decides the fruit are “smooth and mild — and refreshingly addictive!” The entire town becomes hooked after one bite, and Homer gets rich.

Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, wondered whether such a thing could exist. He tried grafting a tobacco plant onto a tomato root. But it didn’t take, and the plant died.

He then tried reversing it, grafting a tomato plant onto tobacco roots. After a few trials and errors, he ended up with a “tomacco” plant. Thankfully, it didn’t require the boost of plutonium “fertilizer” that Homer’s crops needed.

Baur’s plant is small and has produced only one piece of fruit. But a laboratory has confirmed the plant’s leaves indeed contain nicotine. Though the fruit hasn’t been tested, Baur believes it could be poisonous since it likely contains a lethal amount of nicotine.

The tomato and tobacco plant can successfully become one because they come from the same plant family, which also includes eggplant and the deadly nightshade.

Bauer, an operations analyst in an Oregon waste-water facility, remembered a 1959 study he had read for a graduate chemistry class in university, in which researchers crossed a tomato plant with tobacco. Since his work involves chemistry, he had saved his textbooks and was able to find the 1959 study.

It turns out that George Meyers, a writer for The Simpsons at the time, got a degree in biochemistry from Harvard. However, he didn’t write the tomacco episode. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, who majored in English at Brown University.

The local Oregon affiliate for Fox News, the sister network of Fox, which creates The Simpsons, has done a segment on Baur’s accomplishment. Now he’s an instant celebrity.

And yet, no tobacco companies have called demanding the rights, the fate that befell Homer. But Baur is relieved. At least the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives hasn’t called.

source : http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20031113/tomacco031113?s_name=&no_ads=

Nevertheless, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, dreamed of bringing to life his favorite The Simpsons episode, one from 1999 in which Homer grows “tomacco,” a combination tomato-tobacco plant. Even though it tastes foul and has a brown, gooey center, the entire town becomes addicted to the fruit after one bite, and Homer gets rich.

Baur grafted a tomato plant onto tobacco roots, and voilà, he had a real, live tomacco plant. The two plants can successfully become one because they come from the same plant family, which also includes eggplant and the deadly nightshade. The tomacco even bore fruit, although Baur said he believes it’s poisonous because it likely contains a lethal amount of nicotine.

“I’ve got this one plant growing, and it’s blooming again,” Baur said. “I accidentally left the tomacco on the kitchen table, and my wife yelled at me, ‘Get that thing out of the kitchen, you knucklehead!’ Because it looks like a regular tomato.”

Earlier in the summer, Baur tried grafting a tobacco plant onto a tomato root and got a “tobato,” but when he removed the bandage from the graft it fell apart and later died.

But the tomacco grafted together well. Baur wanted to know if it was a true hybrid, so he asked a forensic researcher to test the plant’s constitution. The results showed the leaves did indeed contain nicotine. The local Fox News station, KPTV, did a segment on Baur’s accomplishment.

“He only had the one fruit, and we didn’t get a chance to test that,” said Roy Grimsbo, the forensic scientist who performed the test and director of Intermountain Forensic Laboratories in Portland. “We just tested the leaves. It had regular green fresh leaves.”

Grimsbo did the work for free and said he hopes Baur will bring back an actual tomacco fruit for testing.

The Simpsons tomacco episode struck a chord with Baur, who is an operations analyst for a municipal waste water-treatment plant. He remembered a 1959 study he had read for a graduate chemistry class at Western Washington University in Bellingham, in which researchers crossed a tomato plant with tobacco. Since his work involves chemistry, he had saved his textbooks and was able to find the 1959 study.

“I thought, ‘Aha! I bet the writer of this Simpsons show had to have seen this too,’” Baur said. “I felt a bond with that Simpsons writer.”

It turns out that George Meyers, a writer for The Simpsons at the time, got a degree in biochemistry from Harvard. However, he didn’t write the tomacco episode. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, who majored in English at Brown University and has said in interviews that he’s a huge fan of Meyers. Neither could be reached for comment.

The tomacco episode also resonated with Baur because he’s not a big fan of the tobacco industry. His mother, a lifetime smoker, died of lung cancer. His father, who also smoked all his life, had one lung removed and later died of colon cancer. Baur also lost an uncle to lung cancer.

“It really showed big tobacco for what it is, and the ridiculousness of this stuff that tastes bad, but then you’re addicted to it, and the lengths people will go to get it,” he said.

In the episode, Bart Simpson says, “It’s smooth and mild — and refreshingly addictive,” when he eats tomacco. Another scene shows Ralph taking a bite of a tomacco. “Oh, daddy, this tastes like grandma!” he says.

Baur said his kids think he’s nuts, but he said he’ll have the last laugh.

“We’ll see who’s saying ‘D’oh’ when I’m on the cover of TV Guide and Scientific American the same week,” he said.

At least he didn’t try to make “Skittlebrau.”

source : http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/11/61091