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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff from the science Lab from how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Wow, Hey, this is Alson I don't know,

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Speaker 1: the science senator at how stuff works dot com. And

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Speaker 1: this is Robert Lamb, science writer at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Alison, you know the old saying spoonful of

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Speaker 1: sugar makes the medicine go down? I do? I do?

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Speaker 1: Is that Mary Poppins? Um? I think so? Um. Mary

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Speaker 1: Poppins said that famously, And the whole idea is because

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Speaker 1: the medicine is so horrible, just taste so yucky that

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Speaker 1: you've got to have a massive amount of sugar to

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Speaker 1: get a child to take it. The child will choose

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Speaker 1: death over the yucky taste. So you've got to have

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Speaker 1: an appropriate amount of sweetness to cancel it out. Right, Well,

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Speaker 1: you know you can get the drugs right now and

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Speaker 1: choose your flavoring. Well yeah, yeah, but but great flavoring.

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Speaker 1: It's still pretty fat. That's still that's like basically they're

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Speaker 1: still doing the same thing. They're giving you the spoonful

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Speaker 1: of sugar or awful great flavoring whatever to mask the

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Speaker 1: odiousness of the medicine, and it tends not to really

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Speaker 1: mask it. It's like like if you ever had your

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Speaker 1: teeth polished and they use that the stuff that's it's

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Speaker 1: not mint flavored, but it's like cherry flavored, So it

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Speaker 1: ends up not being it's not really cherry. It's just

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Speaker 1: kind of a slightly it's even more yucky for trying

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Speaker 1: to be something it's not. You know, yes, yes, but

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Speaker 1: this leads to question, um, how much sugar If it's

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Speaker 1: one spoonful of sugar to counteract the medicine, how much

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Speaker 1: sugar would you need if the cure for your sickness was, say,

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Speaker 1: a snake bite or a sting from some sort of

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Speaker 1: venomous spider. Quite a lot of sugar, right, so it seems. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that's what we're talking about today. That's our roundabout

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Speaker 1: in to to the use of venoms as and the

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Speaker 1: virtues of venom. Actually, I think the venom really gets

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Speaker 1: a bad rap, namely because when we think of venom,

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Speaker 1: we think of horrible pain. Yeah, we think of you know,

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Speaker 1: getting bit by like an inland taipe in a snake

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Speaker 1: whose venom is supposedly one of the most toxic in

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Speaker 1: the world. Inside this, you know, terrible agonizing death in

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Speaker 1: America matter of minutes. Yeah, or any Just do a

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Speaker 1: Google image search and you'll see all number of horrible black,

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Speaker 1: gaping wounds and people with you know, limbs swollen up

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Speaker 1: like like giant balloons. Yeah, so venom, as you guys know,

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Speaker 1: it comes with a built in delivery system. It's not

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Speaker 1: just um a defensive mechanism. It tends to be used

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Speaker 1: as an offensive mechanism. You know, you think of a

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Speaker 1: snake and it has the venom, will it needs the

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Speaker 1: means to deliver it, so the fangs or how whatever

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Speaker 1: means it chooses. And so, aside from these agonizing deaths

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Speaker 1: that induces, venom is actually pretty cool And there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of interesting therapeutic research that's going on out there

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Speaker 1: in science labs right now. And why are they doing this?

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Speaker 1: Why is whenom so promising? Well, because it's full stuff

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Speaker 1: like proteins that can manage pain and treat illnesses. So

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Speaker 1: Robert and I thought we'd do a little survey of

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Speaker 1: some of the research that's going on with the world's

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Speaker 1: venomous creatures. And of course I'm kicking off with snakes.

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Speaker 1: I think I will definitely say that I've had a

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Speaker 1: turnaround with my feeling for snakes, they're just amazingly, amazingly

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Speaker 1: cool organisms. We did a whole series of articles um

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Speaker 1: for an Animal Planet show called Wild Vecon in which

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Speaker 1: we examine the therapeutic benefits of venom, snake venom in particular,

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Speaker 1: and it's pretty amazing. So let's do a quicker view

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Speaker 1: of some of the key components found in different snake venoms.

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Speaker 1: Some of the stuff that just may kill you or

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Speaker 1: cause you great pain. You have stuff like cytotoxins, and

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Speaker 1: what a citotoxin is gonna do. They're gonna cause cell death. Basically,

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Speaker 1: there's actually beginning the digestion process for the snake like

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Speaker 1: grattlesnakes for example, of cytotoxins, and then use stuff like

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Speaker 1: hemotoxins and this is this gets the blood involves and

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Speaker 1: you can cause blood clots and basically decimate the blood vessels. Um.

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Speaker 1: So a gaboon viper they have have these, isn't it?

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Speaker 1: Or a motorcycle I'm picturing like a fancy Japanese motorcycle.

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Speaker 1: Well it's also a snake, yes, yes it is. And

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Speaker 1: then you use stuff like neurotoxins and this is going

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Speaker 1: to affect the praise nervous system and do stuff like

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Speaker 1: nerve impulses and make the prey become paralyzed or um

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Speaker 1: it could just make the nervous system collapse. So a

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Speaker 1: cobra and a sea snake might have these elements. So

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Speaker 1: how is science interested in using UH venom? Any guesses, Well,

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Speaker 1: the cell death um aspect would definitely lend itself well

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Speaker 1: to fighting cancer or destroying any kind of cells that

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Speaker 1: need to get got. And that is true. And also

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Speaker 1: cobra venom contains a pretty powerful anti coagulants and these

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Speaker 1: anti coagulants are used as a blood thinner and humans.

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Speaker 1: And there's a company that actually manufactures a drub called Exanta,

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Speaker 1: and they've tested extensively in clinical trials UH with like

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Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of volunteers, and the European Union has

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Speaker 1: approved this particular drug derive from cobra venom for preventing

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Speaker 1: clots after surgery. So it's pretty cool. It's a long

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Speaker 1: way from the cobra, you know, and it's habitat um.

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Speaker 1: I have a cool use for a cobra than them

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Speaker 1: as Well's there if if you go to Thailand, you

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Speaker 1: you may occasionally see in a bar you'll see like

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Speaker 1: a fancy bottle of this amber liquid that has a

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Speaker 1: whole cobra in it. And this is a rice whiskey

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Speaker 1: that has been uh that that has been infused with

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Speaker 1: with a dead cobra, all right, and they drink it

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Speaker 1: over there apparently is like it's a very manly thank

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Speaker 1: if you I didn't, I think it's technically illegal. Um,

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Speaker 1: and I wasn't. There's so much to be floored by

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Speaker 1: over there without seeking out potentially deadly in toxicanst but

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Speaker 1: it's it's also apparently seen as an aphrodisiac. And there's

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Speaker 1: actually a really good review of it online at spirits

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Speaker 1: review dot com where he describes it quote as a

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Speaker 1: as a quote an interesting, if potentially neurotoxic whiskey unquote,

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Speaker 1: and he describes the taste as quote fishy hot taste,

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Speaker 1: almost like drinking peanut oil and alcohol with notes of

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Speaker 1: gen singh uh. And apparently it creates this this kind

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Speaker 1: of like tingling effect all over and this numbing um.

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Speaker 1: So potentially very dangerous with very little application. But if

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Speaker 1: you ever go to Thailand and you try it, be

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Speaker 1: sure to let us know don't do not try it,

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Speaker 1: because we're talking about it for legal purposes, but if

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Speaker 1: you have tried it, please please email us. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: cobra venom is pretty popular in scientific circles because it's

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Speaker 1: also being uh investigated to see how it affects MS

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Speaker 1: or a multiple sclerosis. Uh. And you guys know that's

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Speaker 1: the chronic disease of your central nervous system. So in

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Speaker 1: patients with MS, the immune system is attacking the nerve

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Speaker 1: cells and it's stripping off these um protective insulating sheets

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Speaker 1: on the nerve cells. So cobra toxin, however, is suppressing

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Speaker 1: the immune system and animals with the disease. In fact,

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Speaker 1: early research has been sur promising that they have clinical

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Speaker 1: trials going on now to study the effects of cobra

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Speaker 1: toxin human patients with MS, which pretty neat. They've also

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Speaker 1: used as snake foundom to figure out ways to anesthetize

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Speaker 1: patients during surgery. Really disguise the limit when it comes

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Speaker 1: to snake venom. I mean, it just contains so many

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Speaker 1: different elements that could be used for potential therapeutic purposes.

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Speaker 1: But it takes a long way to go from a

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Speaker 1: raw talx into an FDA proof drug, So we'll see.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is definitely an area to watch. It's

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Speaker 1: also interesting and that as as is the case with

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Speaker 1: with a lot of these venoms we're talking about, um,

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Speaker 1: older traditional forms of medicine. We're using these thousands of

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Speaker 1: years ago. Take ancient Indian ara vedic medicine. Um. They

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Speaker 1: and I found this really interesting. They collect the venom

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Speaker 1: like nowadays. You've probably seen a footage where they take

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Speaker 1: the snake and they stick its things over a glass

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Speaker 1: and kind of like squeeze themselves a little beaker full

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Speaker 1: of venom. Um. But apparently they take the snake, force

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Speaker 1: it to sink its things into a piece of fruit,

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Speaker 1: and the fruit would absorb the venom and then you

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Speaker 1: would ingest the fruit. Uh, if you needed to be

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Speaker 1: treated for like liver dysfunctions or eye disease or or

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Speaker 1: you know, various stuff, various illnesses. So what do you

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Speaker 1: what do you have on wasps and bees? Oh? Well, um,

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Speaker 1: wasp and bees. Wasp I find particularly fascinating. Uh you

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Speaker 1: write an article about right? Um? Well yeah, I actually

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Speaker 1: wrote how wasps work as well. That was one of

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Speaker 1: my earlier articles here at the site. So you're a

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Speaker 1: well of wasp knowledge. I really gore to respect them

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Speaker 1: like a lot of people are like, oh, wasp, and

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Speaker 1: they're like, oh, but they love bees, like oh, you know, God,

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Speaker 1: let me buy some chapstick with a bee on it

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Speaker 1: and let me dress my child like a bee for Halloween.

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Speaker 1: But wasps, it's just kill on site. The wasp are

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Speaker 1: really amazing. I mean there, I could go on a

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Speaker 1: whole tangent. But like, you know, you think you have

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Speaker 1: too many poisono spiders around your house? Are you're afraid

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Speaker 1: of like brown, reclusive and whatever? Get dirt dabbers because

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Speaker 1: dirt dabbers. Um, you know, the little the ones that

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Speaker 1: build their little nests out of mud. I think they're

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Speaker 1: called different things in different regions. But those guys eat

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Speaker 1: spiders like crazy. They'll like bring them back for their young.

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Speaker 1: Why did they bring them? Bring spiders back for their

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Speaker 1: young is key to why there's a lot of possibility

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Speaker 1: for their for their venom. Yeah, now, wasp, whether you're

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Speaker 1: talking about wasps or bees and bees or just um,

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Speaker 1: the bees evolved from from wasp. Okay, only the females

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Speaker 1: have stingers, and that's because the stinger is an ovipositor.

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Speaker 1: This is an egg laying organ that only and only

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Speaker 1: the females have it. The purpose of the ovapositor is

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Speaker 1: to lay eggs inside of another organism, so it's it's

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Speaker 1: you know, it's sharp, it sticks into another creature's body.

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Speaker 1: And the venom. The purpose of the venom would be

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Speaker 1: too incapacitate the prey, but also to um to make

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Speaker 1: changes in it to where it can be used as

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Speaker 1: a living nursery for the growing young, which will eventually

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Speaker 1: um consume it from the inside out. So interesting, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So to facilitate this, the venom inflix such symptoms as

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Speaker 1: developmental arrest, growth alteration, immune response suppression, paralysis, and behavior modification.

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Speaker 1: So it's a there's a there's a it's a complicated UM,

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Speaker 1: you know, toxin, there's a there's a lot of different

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Speaker 1: things that can go on in these in these venoms,

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Speaker 1: and that means there's a lot of potential to apply

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Speaker 1: these two UH and and turn them into into medicines

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Speaker 1: that we can use. UM. There's been a fair amount

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Speaker 1: of recent buzz over the mapping of the parasitic wasp genome,

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Speaker 1: for it's a species called Nessonium, and UH researchers think

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Speaker 1: that this holds a lot of potential in creating new medicines.

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Speaker 1: In some cases it might we might be able to

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Speaker 1: find particular venoms that we can actually use. But then

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Speaker 1: sometimes researchers can use these as leads where we observe

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Speaker 1: the the changes that a particular venom causes, and then

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Speaker 1: we can try and create something that replicates those effects.

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Speaker 1: That that's really fascinating. And as far as bees goes,

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Speaker 1: there's a whole since again everyone loves bees, but wasps

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Speaker 1: or dirty creatures. There are people that that are just

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Speaker 1: crazy about be curatives. It's they call it um apitherapy,

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Speaker 1: and this is an alternative medicine you. But there are

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Speaker 1: people that just are like, oh, you're sick, here, have

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Speaker 1: some b wax, have some honey, have some have some here,

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Speaker 1: just let some be sting and it's gonna be fine. Um.

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Speaker 1: They're they're really sold on the idea. But Western medicine

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Speaker 1: is still kind of feeling it out. Are their studies investigating, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are studies. It's a it's just the scientists are

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Speaker 1: not as sold on it as the as the alternative

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Speaker 1: medicine crowd um. And then there's rachmans and spiders um,

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Speaker 1: the ones that the wasp don't catch and fill what

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Speaker 1: they're young. Take scorpions for instance, most of the you know,

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Speaker 1: most people probably think of these is just the things

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Speaker 1: that you don't want in your shoes, right Like in

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Speaker 1: Mexico alone, I think each year a hundred thousand people

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Speaker 1: suffer from scorpion stings UM and uh, you know, and

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Speaker 1: then it can be pretty bad news. You can cause delirium,

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Speaker 1: intensive pain, et cetera. But Harvard researchers UM experimented with

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Speaker 1: giving my nice calatoxin from scorpion venom and they observed

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Speaker 1: eight less jawbone loss in the rats. Okay, now this

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Speaker 1: is this is how this this works. The calatoxin blocks

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Speaker 1: a protein that plays a major role in inflammation, and

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Speaker 1: when it's blocked, it also decreases the activity of a

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Speaker 1: protein UM that plays a role in stimulating bone eating

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Speaker 1: um Osteo class. So they think it could it could

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Speaker 1: have a lot of potential to you know, help help

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Speaker 1: fight things like um, you know, opteoporosis, etcetera. Right, so

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Speaker 1: all these elderly women who are you know, hopping up

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Speaker 1: on calcium venoms might instead be scorpion scorpion or two

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Speaker 1: you can wear them like like broaches, you know, UM

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Speaker 1: and this is this is a really amazing radioactive scorpion venom,

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Speaker 1: which I sounds like a set up for a comic

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Speaker 1: book hero. But and I think maybe is like the

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Speaker 1: scorpion you know comic books, right, No, no, you don't

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Speaker 1: know com but no, I think the scorpion is anyway,

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Speaker 1: But this has nothing to do with that. The venom

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Speaker 1: of the yellow Israeli scorpion shows preferential attachment too, glioma

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Speaker 1: tumor cells in the brain or spine. All right, So

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Speaker 1: scientists have figured out that they can attach a radio

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Speaker 1: radioactive iodine to an artificial version of this venom. So

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Speaker 1: the artificial version of this venom then attaches to the

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Speaker 1: tumor cell, and since it's got a little backpack of radiation,

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Speaker 1: the radiation kills the cell. So it's kind of used

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Speaker 1: it like a kind of like a trojan horse kind

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Speaker 1: of deal. Very cool. Yeah, so let's get to the water.

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Speaker 1: Then let's do it. List at the water, what do

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Speaker 1: you got? Jellyfish? Jellyfish and fish in the water. You're

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Speaker 1: gonna find venomous jellyfish and you know, plain old fish.

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Speaker 1: In fact, one pretty interesting fact I came across when

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Speaker 1: we're doing this venom research was that there are more

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Speaker 1: venomous fish than snakes, according to this two thousand six

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Speaker 1: study published in the Journal of Heredity. Well, that makes

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Speaker 1: sense because the the oceans are really the most just,

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Speaker 1: i mean, just the roughest area to try and cut

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Speaker 1: out an evolutionary ray Niche did you do it? Well?

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Speaker 1: So one of the species that they mentioned is the

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Speaker 1: lion fish. Didn't you do a blog post about their

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Speaker 1: line fishline fish is a really horrible invasive species in

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Speaker 1: the um in the Atlantic waters um. It's just most

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Speaker 1: of most of the native species aren't used to handling

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Speaker 1: the venom that these guys carry in their spine. They're

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Speaker 1: beautiful fish, and that's one of the reasons that they're

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Speaker 1: when they're like three different reasons, there are a big problem,

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Speaker 1: and one of them is that people get them for

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Speaker 1: their saltwater aquariums and then they end up losing them

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Speaker 1: or dumping them, et cetera. And now down the toilet. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's not good. So the animal in the water that

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Speaker 1: really captured my interest was this box jellyfish. Have ever

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Speaker 1: heard of a box jellyfish? No? Is it cute shaped?

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Speaker 1: Because I'm picturing a cube? No, it's roughly like the

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Speaker 1: size of a peanut, and it has one of the

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Speaker 1: most toxic venoms in the world. And one of the

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Speaker 1: species is called the molo kinney. And how did it

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Speaker 1: get its name, Well from a US tourist who was

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Speaker 1: killed by one in two thousand two. Up a gentleman

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Speaker 1: by the name of Robert King who is presumably mining

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Speaker 1: his own business and swimming off the coast of Australia

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Speaker 1: and Wemmo. He was stung by one of these boxed jellyfish,

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Speaker 1: the molochini, and he died. And it wasn't just any death,

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Speaker 1: but that when when you get a sting from one

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Speaker 1: of these organisms, that can lead to symptoms like you know,

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Speaker 1: shooting pains in your muscles and chests. You get some

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Speaker 1: muscle cramps in your arms, you get severe pain in

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Speaker 1: the back and in your kidneys, a burning sensation of

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Speaker 1: the skin, and face headaches. Oh and this is my

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Speaker 1: favorite one, um, as far as one of these can

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Speaker 1: be a favorite. A psychological phenomena like the feeling of

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Speaker 1: impending death does a lot of work for just one

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Speaker 1: venom by a peanut sized jellyfish. So it's gotten so

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Speaker 1: bad and people are so afraid of getting stung by

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Speaker 1: these particular jellyfish that Aussee lifeguards sometimes were penny hose. No,

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Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. The Australian lifeguards sometimes we're panyos on

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Speaker 1: their arms and legs to prevent the jellies from staying.

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Speaker 1: I guess because I just hate that. I mean, they

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Speaker 1: should feel comfortable wearing the pantyhouse anyway, they shouldn't have

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Speaker 1: to feel like they need to make an excuse about

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Speaker 1: crazy della fish. But now, really it really actually prevents

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Speaker 1: being stung. This is some of the lore that's out there,

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Speaker 1: and people do actually do it. Do they wear the

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Speaker 1: stocking over their head too, right, so they can do

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Speaker 1: a bank after you know, I'm gonna go swimming, put

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Speaker 1: on my pantios and then I'm gonna pull my stocking

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Speaker 1: over my head and go to a bank heist. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. So they've been studying this box jelly fish.

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Speaker 1: You figure out a product that could protect bathers from

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Speaker 1: being stung other than wearing pantyhose. Of course, researchers are

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Speaker 1: also the king to to find out like how venoms

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Speaker 1: have evolved in box jellies, and they're developing anti venoms

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Speaker 1: for the stings, because these are a serious problem in

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Speaker 1: Australian waters. It just seems like everything in Australia's poisonous,

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Speaker 1: except for maybe the kangaroos and the quals, but they

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Speaker 1: probably they're probably packing a stinger somewhere. We just haven't

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Speaker 1: noticed it yet. Right, that snake I haven't mentioned at

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Speaker 1: the beginning, the most toxic snake in the world, also

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Speaker 1: the native of Australia. I don't know how you guys

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Speaker 1: do it. As tell me about frogs, oh, frogs, um Well,

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Speaker 1: traditional Chinese medicine has incocorporated the frogs for thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: and modern Western medicine is just kind of catching up

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Speaker 1: with all this. So here are just a few frogs

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Speaker 1: that we think have some potential. There's the giant leaf frog.

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Speaker 1: This giant leaf frog, not leap frog. Not leap frog.

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Speaker 1: That's that's the different thing entirely. But it has peptides,

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Speaker 1: and it's the venom that can reduce blood pressure by

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Speaker 1: in small doses under lab conditions, So don't don't go

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Speaker 1: buying them on eBay and then sticking them to your body.

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Speaker 1: The same frog also produces a peptide that stops blood

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Speaker 1: from clotting, and they think this might be useful to

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Speaker 1: fight deep vein thrombosis. This is the condition that you're

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Speaker 1: supposed to be wary of if you're taking any long

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Speaker 1: flights in like economy. Oh yeah, that's why you're supposed

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Speaker 1: to walk around. Yeah, And this is also why if

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Speaker 1: you've taken any long flights recently and you notice the

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Speaker 1: stewardess is handing out frogs at the end of the flight,

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Speaker 1: that's what this is about. Um all right. Then there's

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Speaker 1: the African running frog, and this one actually doesn't have

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Speaker 1: any medical significance significance, but since it uses a venom

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Speaker 1: to kill insects for prey, they think it might be

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Speaker 1: useful in um in like coating crops to keep pests away.

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Speaker 1: And also the wasps that I entered and mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: the the parasitic wasps, They think that would also might

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Speaker 1: have a lot of potential as a pesticide enemy uses pesticide.

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Speaker 1: Interesting back to frogs, though, there's the Australian tree frog,

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Speaker 1: which is shown some um some success in the fighting

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Speaker 1: conditions of that are resistant to antibiotics, and this is

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Speaker 1: because the venom um embeds in the membrane of the

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Speaker 1: bacteria and burst the cell and they can't really become

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Speaker 1: immune to that. And then there's the North American pond

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Speaker 1: frog and they found the molecules in this particular have

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Speaker 1: been a stimulate or inhibit the growth of cancer tumors.

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Speaker 1: So there's some research going into that and seeing what

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Speaker 1: applications that might have in fighting cancer. So it seems

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Speaker 1: like frogs in in addition to coding your you know,

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Speaker 1: poisoned darts to a shoot out of your blowguns, you know,

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Speaker 1: they have a lot of medical possibilities as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it definitely seems that there's a lot of venom research

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Speaker 1: that could be used for therapeutic purposes for people with

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Speaker 1: heart problems, I mean that keeps on coming up, and

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Speaker 1: people with blood pressure and uh and I don't think

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Speaker 1: they've really looked into this, but I think energy drinks

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Speaker 1: could be a big, big area of development. You know,

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Speaker 1: the one called venom, I think there's one. There's one

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Speaker 1: called venom, but I didn't look it up, so I

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Speaker 1: don't know. But it actually has like scorpion venom or

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Speaker 1: but you could have the you could have a whole line,

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Speaker 1: like each one has a different cartoon animal on it.

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Speaker 1: Like one has a wasp and then there's like a scorpion.

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Speaker 1: It's like it's like using its close to like lift weights,

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Speaker 1: you know, marketed towards each one could be a specific

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Speaker 1: animal marketed towards it a particular like extreme sport or

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Speaker 1: high energy, macho caffeine kind of a thing. All right,

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Speaker 1: So let's go from frogs to our last animal, and

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Speaker 1: our last animals a mammal, the platypus. We've covered reptiles, spiders, jellyfish, snakes, frogs,

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Speaker 1: but what about mammals. I don't I don't tend to

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Speaker 1: think of venomous mammals to you know, and like a

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Speaker 1: venomous ape. Yeah, I love the idea of enomous eate.

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Speaker 1: But I completely made it up. And that's the thing.

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Speaker 1: The platypus really sounds like a made up animal. It

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Speaker 1: really does. In fact, they thought it was made up.

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Speaker 1: There was a platypus that was sent to the Brits

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Speaker 1: um a while a while back, you know, eons ago,

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Speaker 1: and the Brits didn't believe that it was and so they,

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Speaker 1: you know, they thought it was like, yeah, they thought

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Speaker 1: it was a fake animal. Because apparently Chinese folks have

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Speaker 1: been known to do this. They made up an animal

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Speaker 1: called an Eastern mermaid. Yeah, it was like the monkey

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Speaker 1: and the fish parts, right, so they thought that this

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Speaker 1: platypus was a similar thing. Yeah, kind of Coney Island

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Speaker 1: freak show kind of stuff. Well, so platypuss guys probably

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Speaker 1: remember it's it's the duck build furry creature. It's this

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Speaker 1: weird combo of a bird and a reptile and a mammal,

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Speaker 1: but it actually is a mammal. They're like these odd

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Speaker 1: balls of the animal kingdom. But the most interesting thing is, well,

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Speaker 1: one of the most interesting things in platypus lore is

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Speaker 1: that the males have these venomous spurs on the back

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Speaker 1: of each of their hind legs. My females have the

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Speaker 1: spurs too, but they fall off before adulthood. The only

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Speaker 1: thing that researchers can think of for the for the

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Speaker 1: spurs is that they're they're used when males are duking

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Speaker 1: it out for a mate. So nobody's died from a

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Speaker 1: platypus poisoning per se. In fact, we have an article

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Speaker 1: of that same name. Could a platypus poison me? By

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Speaker 1: by Christen Conger. I believe you should check it up.

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Speaker 1: So there are no known human fatalities, but surely some

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Speaker 1: dogs have dined. And in case you're thinking that platypus

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Speaker 1: venom is is, you know nothing in the venom kingdom.

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Speaker 1: In humans, the pain caused by platypus venom isn't relieved

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Speaker 1: by morphine, so that's pretty pretty scruciating. So Assie researchers

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00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:02,880
Speaker 1: again comes down to Australia. They're looking into how platypus

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Speaker 1: venom could be used for pain management. There's also a

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Speaker 1: lot of pain management themes going through this venom applications.

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Speaker 1: They're also really interested in the platypus just generally because

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Speaker 1: it's the oldest surviving branch of all mammals living today

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Speaker 1: and they in addition they've they've undertaken a draft genome

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Speaker 1: analysis of the duck build platypus. So far, we've seen

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Speaker 1: platypus venom show positive results in reducing great amounts of

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Speaker 1: pain and that's about it. So it seems like platypus

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Speaker 1: venom researches is wide open if any of you guys

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Speaker 1: are looking for an area research to get to get

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Speaker 1: going in, and it sounds like a place to go

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Speaker 1: with Australia for any of these venom research places. Just

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Speaker 1: make sure you don't get a run in your pantyhouse. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: that could be the last mistake you make. So if

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Speaker 1: you've been bitten by a venomous animal or used one

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Speaker 1: of the medicines we mentioned, or drank the cobra drink

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Speaker 1: in Thailand, yes do do email us if you've actually

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Speaker 1: consumed that beverage because I'm very interested here at tales. Yeah,

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00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 1: send us an email at science stuff at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Or you can check out some of

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Speaker 1: our related content like do jellyfish have the deadliest venom

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Speaker 1: in the world? Or Christian Congress fine article that we

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Speaker 1: just mentioned on the Platypus, or visit the blogs. That's

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Speaker 1: all we got. Thanks for listening. For more on this

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.

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