{"id":873,"date":"2026-04-20T15:53:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T22:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/?p=873"},"modified":"2026-04-20T15:53:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T22:53:03","slug":"lucas-forshee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/2026\/04\/20\/lucas-forshee\/","title":{"rendered":"#80: Discovering Strychnine in the Lab and in the Archive with Lucas Forshee &#8217;25, Chemistry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"579\" height=\"579\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/files\/2026\/04\/Lucas-Forshee-web.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-874\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/files\/2026\/04\/Lucas-Forshee-web.jpeg 579w, https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/files\/2026\/04\/Lucas-Forshee-web-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/files\/2026\/04\/Lucas-Forshee-web-150x150.jpeg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 579px) 100vw, 579px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ace chats with Lucas Forshee about his thesis on the molecule strychnine, which, despite being poisonous, was used as a stimulant for athletes in the 1904 Olympics. Lucas shares a bit about the chemical composition of strychnine, why it&#8217;s such a complicated molecule, and why it&#8217;s so fascinating to researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Lucas&#8217;s research didn&#8217;t just take place in the chemistry lab: a big part of his project was developing a written history of strychnine. Tune in to hear Lucas reflect on synthesizing the humanities and science in his thesis, and how this process gave him a renewed love for writing and a desire to return to graduate school (eventually).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reed community members can read Lucas&#8217;s thesis, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/rdc.reed.edu\/i\/00b5c42f-1072-4f7e-a728-ff6cff259858\">Strychnine: History and Synthesis<\/a>,\u201d online in the Electronic Thesis Archive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/soundcloud%253Atracks%253A2306270129&#038;color=%23ff5500&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;show_comments=true&#038;show_user=true&#038;show_reposts=false&#038;show_teaser=true\"><\/iframe><div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/burnyourdraft\" title=\"Burn Your Draft\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\">Burn Your Draft<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/burnyourdraft\/lucas-forshee\" title=\"#80: Discovering Strychnine in the Lab and in the Archive with Lucas Forshee &#x27;25, Chemistry\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\">#80: Discovering Strychnine in the Lab and in the Archive with Lucas Forshee &#x27;25, Chemistry<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ace chats with Lucas Forshee about his thesis on the molecule strychnine, which, despite being poisonous, was used as a stimulant for athletes in the 1904 Olympics. Lucas shares a bit about the chemical composition of strychnine, why it&#8217;s such &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/2026\/04\/20\/lucas-forshee\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1039,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[99,33],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast-episode","tag-chemistry","tag-lab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}