4 Plants That Are Great for Humans
A quarter of all prescription drugs in the U.S. come from substances that are found only in plants. In this episode of SciShow, we take a look at four of these talented plants who make our...
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They might not be able to pull you out of a freezing lake, or carry you from a burning building, but plants have probably saved your life, or at least made you feel a whole lot better. That’s because, at least in the U.S., a quarter of all prescription drugs come from substances that are found only in plants. We humans have a long history of using plants to treat diseases. Most of those treatments were probably discovered using blind luck -- like, by people munching on random leaves and seeing how they felt. If they found one that seemed to work, the knowledge would usually get passed around by word of mouth, but sometimes it would also be written down. That’s how we ended up with recipes that are about as old as writing itself -- like the 5000 year old...
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They might not be able to pull you out of a freezing lake, or carry you from a burning building, but plants have probably saved your life, or at least made you feel a whole lot better. That’s because, at least in the U.S., a quarter of all prescription drugs come from substances that are found only in plants. We humans have a long history of using plants to treat diseases. Most of those treatments were probably discovered using blind luck -- like, by people munching on random leaves and seeing how they felt. If they found one that seemed to work, the knowledge would usually get passed around by word of mouth, but sometimes it would also be written down. That’s how we ended up with recipes that are about as old as writing itself -- like the 5000 year old...
