Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know from our beloved website,
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. That's right, we work for
Speaker 1: a website. And did you know that? Yeah? You know,
Speaker 1: when people ask me what I do, like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I met some friend Emily t other day and she's like,
Speaker 1: what do you do? I always just say I work
Speaker 1: for a website, and the when it starts in on stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, yeah, I just I work for a website. Jo.
Speaker 1: It's just easy that way. Not only do you work
Speaker 1: for it, you are the website. Is what you should say.
Speaker 1: I have lobbied for Chuck how Chuck works dot com.
Speaker 1: But people would sign on to that. Man. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: this would have been a much better way to start
Speaker 1: out the future of the Internet one huh. Probably. So
Speaker 1: instead of we're gonna go back way back, Chuck back
Speaker 1: in time? Um? Is that Huey Lewis sort of He's
Speaker 1: playing Tomorrow Night or tonight where I think he's doing Chastain,
Speaker 1: He's doing like you know, the Memphis uh Stacks Music,
Speaker 1: Memphis Soul Show, what along with your favorite Huey Lewis classics?
Speaker 1: What I did not know this? How did you not
Speaker 1: tell me this? I didn't know? Would you be seriously
Speaker 1: want to go? I would totally go see Huey Lewis. Dude,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard Sports? Yeah? I had Sports when
Speaker 1: I was one of the greatest albums ever released. It
Speaker 1: was one of the top albums of that year. From
Speaker 1: beginning to finished, that was a great album. Anyway, Yes,
Speaker 1: I would see Huey Lewis, and now I figured out
Speaker 1: how to get there in a few hours. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's tonight, but I heard a promo for
Speaker 1: it today on the radio, so it's good, good, good
Speaker 1: to know. Um, well, Chuck, we're gonna go even further
Speaker 1: back than the height of Huey Lewis's career. We're gonna
Speaker 1: go several thousand years before that. Okay, Now we'll go
Speaker 1: back to about the height of Hughey Lewis's career, maybe
Speaker 1: a little before it. When I was a young lad
Speaker 1: and I was watching TV. Remember those time life books
Speaker 1: that we talked about here there. So there was one
Speaker 1: set that, um it was like Mysteries of Mankind or
Speaker 1: Mysteries of History or something like that, and I remember
Speaker 1: clearly it said how could ancient civilizations perform brain surgery?
Speaker 1: And patients survived? And there's this kind of like did
Speaker 1: almost caveman looking guy like with like a scar on
Speaker 1: his head and he looked at the camera like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still alive, but it hurts, you know. I saw
Speaker 1: that and I went it just captured me. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I came to find out that that was a real thing,
Speaker 1: and that, apart from a lot of the stuff you
Speaker 1: find in time life books, it was correct. There's such
Speaker 1: a thing as trep a nation and people actually did
Speaker 1: survive it. Talk about this in the lobotomies. I think
Speaker 1: so because I know we had we had to of
Speaker 1: But trepid nation has been around as a surgical procedure.
Speaker 1: It's brain surgery in that the brain is affected by it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they went in and poked around, but for the
Speaker 1: most part it was just cutting away a piece of
Speaker 1: the skull in the scalp to relieve pressure on the brain. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: And they did the same thing in a much more
Speaker 1: sophisticated way these days, for like swelling of the brain. Right,
Speaker 1: and some traditional societies still carry out trepid nation today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but um, as I said, it was successful, some um
Speaker 1: Andian cultures showed evidence of like at success rate, which
Speaker 1: is pretty good as far as I know, right, not bad.
Speaker 1: But this is a really ancient procedure. This is um Neolithic, right,
Speaker 1: seven thousand and two thousand BC. That's a long time ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like, uh four to nine thousand years ago. And
Speaker 1: if you think about that to nine thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: if they could successfully seventy percent of the time they
Speaker 1: could successfully open your skull up, well they that with
Speaker 1: a hundred percent successful Yeah, but you could remove your
Speaker 1: heart hundred percent success. Right. But um, so trepid nation
Speaker 1: is this ancient form of surgery. And about the same time,
Speaker 1: probably people started figuring out that not only could they
Speaker 1: perform surgery, but if they wanted to, they could hang
Speaker 1: their shingle out and practice medicine if they knew what
Speaker 1: they were talking about with plants, right, that's right. So
Speaker 1: for a long time we suspect UH indigenous groups uh
Speaker 1: had some sort of idea understanding about what plants were,
Speaker 1: what what plants could be used for. That's right. But
Speaker 1: then about there is this explosion, right, yes, this was
Speaker 1: after the ancient Egyptians and pharaohs poked around and the
Speaker 1: Sumerians with medicinal plants, um, China, Africa and India, that's
Speaker 1: what it really exploded. And they actually I started to
Speaker 1: list these things and put them down on paper or
Speaker 1: whatever they were using at the time, to to papyrus. Well,
Speaker 1: in Egypt and ken I, if you want to be technical,
Speaker 1: there's a papyrus that's um dated to fifteen fifty three
Speaker 1: BC that lists seven different drugs, a lot of which
Speaker 1: are plant based, probably almost all. Yeah, I would say,
Speaker 1: so they weren't doing synthetic chemical spect they know. But
Speaker 1: about the same time, like you said, in Africa and
Speaker 1: India and China, like all these people started just jotting
Speaker 1: down their understandings of plants. And it was extensive, right yeah,
Speaker 1: like rub this on your sore that and it will
Speaker 1: ease your pain and suffering exactly, you know, so we
Speaker 1: should write that down. A lot of trial and error,
Speaker 1: I imagine, isn't that shacks line from that icy hot
Speaker 1: and rubbed this there and it'll ease your pain. Um. So,
Speaker 1: so these these this understanding, this knowledge was like added
Speaker 1: to and subtracted from, you know, over the course of
Speaker 1: centuries and in millennia, and then about like the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: there is like a sharp divergence, right, yes, Josh, that
Speaker 1: is when uh, in the first edition of the American Pharmacopeia,
Speaker 1: early hundreds um drugs at the time we're s plant
Speaker 1: based flashboard nineteen sixty only five point three were plant based.
Speaker 1: So what happens is you've introduced people that could figure
Speaker 1: out how to synthetically duplicate a lot of these plants.
Speaker 1: So are they still plant based? Does that even count?
Speaker 1: After a while? I think it's kind of like you
Speaker 1: know how people say, like this is made with um
Speaker 1: our our product not tested on animals. That's because it
Speaker 1: uses stuff that's that was tested on animals thirty years
Speaker 1: ago and found safe, so no longer. Yes, So I
Speaker 1: think it's much the same way where once you synthesize
Speaker 1: something enough for you know, a synthetic alkaloid has this effect,
Speaker 1: you can use it in all these different ways with
Speaker 1: something else that makes sense. So that was a that
Speaker 1: represented a real separation from uh, the West and traditional cultures. Right.
Speaker 1: This medicinal rift is what I just called it, So
Speaker 1: kind of like medicinal rifts um as our understanding of
Speaker 1: chemistry and the effects of drugs on the body groove.
Speaker 1: Then you know, we we just kind of diverged from
Speaker 1: traditional societies. But there came to be an awareness at
Speaker 1: some point in time that all of these rainforests that
Speaker 1: were destroying, in all of the uncontacted tribes that were
Speaker 1: running out, um have a wealth of information that wasn't
Speaker 1: listed in these early pharmacopias. Right, Sure that there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of understanding of how to cure all sorts of
Speaker 1: diseases out there, and we kind of need it. So
Speaker 1: out of that has grown this whole field the sub
Speaker 1: discipline of anthropology called ethnobotany. Yeah, what was the Connery movie?
Speaker 1: They were searching for the cure for cancer in the
Speaker 1: jungle Rangoon beyond Rangoon. No, that was Rangoon man. No,
Speaker 1: I can't remember the attack of theo. It was the
Speaker 1: lady from the Sopranos and Good Fellas and then Sean
Speaker 1: Connery and he they were in the jungle, I think
Speaker 1: searching for a cure for cancer or something. Good movie.
Speaker 1: But that's that's the point though, is that the cure
Speaker 1: for cancer maybe out there in some leaf that we
Speaker 1: just need to locate and synthesize. Right. The problem is
Speaker 1: is like the field of ethnobotany isn't training people to
Speaker 1: go out and eat leaves and write down their thoughts
Speaker 1: on it. No, you got I guess they're interviewing people
Speaker 1: local tribesmen, indigenous folks and saying, hey, tell us what
Speaker 1: you know about medicine. Maybe we can learn something from that.
Speaker 1: And this is a very very long process. So like, uh,
Speaker 1: the and ethnobotanist is probably going to be somebody who
Speaker 1: was trained as a botanist and undergraduate school and then
Speaker 1: trained in um anthropology, linkinguistics, UM possibly chemistry in grad school.
Speaker 1: Got to be a people person. You have to be
Speaker 1: able to chat it up with the possible head shrinkers
Speaker 1: UM and you go out in the field and you
Speaker 1: have to gain the trust of the people who have
Speaker 1: this information. It might not be common to the whole
Speaker 1: tribe UM. So you have to gain the trust of
Speaker 1: the person who knows what plant to use for what,
Speaker 1: and then get that information from them in a way
Speaker 1: that's agreeable. There's a debate among ethnobotany that's pretty much
Speaker 1: resolved these days, but for a long time that end
Speaker 1: justified the means, like if you could cure athletes foot,
Speaker 1: you know, with this plant, and this guy doesn't want
Speaker 1: to give it to you, don't you have a moral
Speaker 1: obligation to basically take that information from him, steal it
Speaker 1: as it were. Now there's a movement toward making sure
Speaker 1: that these people are like their trust isn't broken, that
Speaker 1: they're willing to share it, and if they're not willing
Speaker 1: to share it, you pay them, pay them money, pay
Speaker 1: pay them either way. Compensation is is kind of becoming
Speaker 1: a more of a thing among ethnobotanists rather than thank you,
Speaker 1: you've done something great here bringing the trucks. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: not only just what the plant is though, but obviously
Speaker 1: they need specifics. They need to know what part of
Speaker 1: the plant because you know, I wrote that article a
Speaker 1: while back on how you can I think the universal
Speaker 1: edibility test. You know some parts of a plant, like
Speaker 1: eat the leaf and you can sustain on it. Eat
Speaker 1: the root and you die in ten seconds. So what
Speaker 1: part of the plant, how much of it to use um,
Speaker 1: which would essentially be the prescription, right, And so the
Speaker 1: ethnobotanist finds the stuff out, takes it back to the
Speaker 1: synthetic chemist, who basically has to go over the you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully the ethnobotanist is like, it's the leaves, just focused
Speaker 1: on the leaves rather than you know, having to do
Speaker 1: this on the plant and the stems and the seeds
Speaker 1: or the flowers or whatever. But a crazy job. Imagine
Speaker 1: how difficult that is. It is very difficult to synthesize
Speaker 1: something like that. Well, first they have to isolate it.
Speaker 1: They gotta find out because you know, the local shame
Speaker 1: isn't He's not gonna be like, well, it's this alkaloid
Speaker 1: in there that's um, you know, going to really get
Speaker 1: you off, um healing you exactly. Um, it's the it's
Speaker 1: the synthetic chemist who isolates the active ingredient and then
Speaker 1: figures out if they can put together a synthetic version
Speaker 1: of it. Because one way to get medicine from plants
Speaker 1: is simple extraction, right, But that's not the most reliable now,
Speaker 1: because you can extract uh, let's say the essential oils
Speaker 1: from one one bit and it might be like really
Speaker 1: really potent, and another bit might not be so it's
Speaker 1: not like it's not consistent across the board, right, And
Speaker 1: if one bit makes it into one jar of that
Speaker 1: stuff and the other bit makes it into one, somebody
Speaker 1: who's in pain is not going to get any relief.
Speaker 1: The other person is going to die because they're gonna
Speaker 1: get like eighty times that feel really really good depending
Speaker 1: on what happens. Um So syn synthesis is the artificial
Speaker 1: synthesis is the um preferred means of of figuring out
Speaker 1: how to make a reasonable fact simile of this what's
Speaker 1: in the plant. You're trying to mimic the compounds. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, if you make it and it's the same thing,
Speaker 1: it has the same molecular structure as what's found in
Speaker 1: the plant, but you made it in the lab, it's
Speaker 1: still the same thing. Right. It's like a test tube baby,
Speaker 1: Like you're the baby is still a real human. This
Speaker 1: is still a real compound. I guess on a molecular level, sure,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I
Speaker 1: thought that somebody much smarter than us probably is like, oh, boys,
Speaker 1: I'll send you an email. I'll let you know. I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to that one. I have to say, um,
Speaker 1: and cheapness is the other reasons. Yes, Well, it's cheaper
Speaker 1: to synthesize something once you figure it out. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's a very long, expensive process, but once you figure
Speaker 1: it out, you're like, has put a couple of hydrogens
Speaker 1: in with that helium and want to stand back? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and better for the environment to like, if something
Speaker 1: has to stay plant based, you're gonna need a lot
Speaker 1: of that plant That's true, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So we have a lot of success stories in UM
Speaker 1: synthesizing drugs from plants. Right. Quinine a part of one
Speaker 1: of my favorite drinks, Gin and tonic. You know it.
Speaker 1: Quinine is pretty across the board, a pretty awesome thing,
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah, that's why tonic water is called tonic
Speaker 1: water because it has quinine in it and it's a
Speaker 1: tonic for malaria. Yeah, it's very small amount, but I
Speaker 1: guess it gives it that signature taste. And don't go
Speaker 1: with the diet. It's awful. There's a diet tonic it's
Speaker 1: not very good. You know, I taste that is super better.
Speaker 1: Remember we when we did the how taste works article,
Speaker 1: I figured out that I am a super taster of bitterness,
Speaker 1: like I can barely tolerate tonic water. It's so bitter.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, interesting campari, don't even get me started. But
Speaker 1: sometimes I torture myself and just have some anyway, And
Speaker 1: tonic I've never mixed with explode. So quinine is used
Speaker 1: to treat malaria based on the chinchona bark. Then you got,
Speaker 1: let's say, another example, dioxin. I'm sorry, dioxin treating heart conditions.
Speaker 1: And that comes from the lovely fox glove. The lovely,
Speaker 1: lovely fox glove that you grow in your garden. We
Speaker 1: do grow it in my garden. Although my fox glove
Speaker 1: is dead right now. It's kind of depressing. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is very dead. Oh no, I'm in depressing. Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course I look at dead plants. Why are you not
Speaker 1: watering it frequiently? No, I don't know what the deal
Speaker 1: was with the fox glove. It might not have transplanted
Speaker 1: it soon enough, or it might not do well in
Speaker 1: a hundred and tin heat index heat um sort of shady.
Speaker 1: Emily is the gardener. I'm just the gardener's assistant. The
Speaker 1: heavy lifter. Another great example that you listed. This is
Speaker 1: your article, right, yeah, okay, is morphine. Yeah, the alkaloid
Speaker 1: from poppy plan It was synthesized into diacetal morphine and
Speaker 1: sold commercially by Bear for twelve years as heroin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where heroin came from, called heroin. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go to the drug store and get some heroin. That's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what's what's crazy is the heroine that's created today.
Speaker 1: You can make a case is um synthesize every time
Speaker 1: a batch is made because it's it's derived from the
Speaker 1: opium poppy. But then you screw with it a little
Speaker 1: bit to make something different, slightly different. So um. But yes,
Speaker 1: Bear invented heroin. Wow, it's amazing. Um. And then Bear
Speaker 1: also invented aspirin, which is derived from willow bark. That's right.
Speaker 1: And are you gonna say, uh, a set of salic acid?
Speaker 1: Nice one, that's aspirin. But what what's the natural compound? Um? Salison? Yes,
Speaker 1: salison um. And that was that was everybody's known about
Speaker 1: willow bark for at least some Syppocrates who wrote about
Speaker 1: it um. And he was a Greek and he lived
Speaker 1: in probably like the third century BC, fourth century BC.
Speaker 1: I always I wish we used zero more in this culture.
Speaker 1: It's so screwy, I know, but I love it. Anytime
Speaker 1: you're trying to place a time like this, you always
Speaker 1: kind of give this look up like you're trying to
Speaker 1: remember hanging out with that person, like forth saying no,
Speaker 1: I think that was third remember correctly, Yeah, so yeah
Speaker 1: it was. I mean it was an anti inflammatory and
Speaker 1: a fever reducer way back then. Still is, And that's
Speaker 1: one of the cool things when you people that poop
Speaker 1: poo Eastern medicine and things, it's like a lot of
Speaker 1: this stuff we use today is just a synthesized version
Speaker 1: of rubbing bark on your face and a lot, a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot more than you'd think. El Dopa, which is
Speaker 1: used to treat Parkinson's, derived from a plant. Um there's
Speaker 1: a whole awesome list if you if you search um
Speaker 1: uh plants synthesized drugs or drugs synthesized plants and a
Speaker 1: search engine, I think the first result is going to
Speaker 1: be this list from like the year two thousands of
Speaker 1: modern drugs that were from plants. Yes, and possibly my
Speaker 1: all time favorite, valium was derived from Valerian root, which
Speaker 1: I found out and just started taking a lot of
Speaker 1: Valerian root. Now you can make a t from it,
Speaker 1: and it's does it chill you up? Really? Yeah? It
Speaker 1: will knock you out too, if really concentrated. But it
Speaker 1: stinks that I haven't and I want to see o
Speaker 1: A right now. I am not in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form recommending anyone try anything that I ever say
Speaker 1: that I do. Ever, even that's like, that's in a
Speaker 1: supplement store, right it is. But you know what, that's
Speaker 1: funny you're saying that because I was listening to why
Speaker 1: why doesn't the f d A regulate herbs? And we
Speaker 1: had this conversation that it's like, because it's in a
Speaker 1: natural food store, we just think that it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's harmless. But you could totally odeon any
Speaker 1: number of things in a natural food store. It's because
Speaker 1: the FDA doesn't regulate it that it appears harmless even
Speaker 1: though it is. Yeah. Um, this brings up a point, Josh,
Speaker 1: that I think have always believed that the there is
Speaker 1: no disease that wherein the cure is not somewhere on
Speaker 1: the planet Earth. Oh is that you believe that? I've
Speaker 1: always thought that? And this you know this is true?
Speaker 1: Look at all, Like every plant that is eventually synthesized
Speaker 1: into medicine. I think the answers are all out there.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of God's great scavenger hunt. Yeah. Maybe,
Speaker 1: so I like that idea. Okay, I've been hitting you
Speaker 1: with the home dingers lately, haven't I you? So you
Speaker 1: can kind of see Aspirin has been around for a while,
Speaker 1: Heroine has been around for a while, Tonic has been
Speaker 1: around for a while. Um, we're still making stuff from plants,
Speaker 1: but we've also figured out another way to use plants
Speaker 1: for medicine. And let's to use like UH enzymes from
Speaker 1: the plants as catalysts and UH chemical reactions cells as
Speaker 1: little petrie dishes almost. Yeah, Basically, if you want to
Speaker 1: carry out a um A chemical reaction in a safe
Speaker 1: environment injected into a plant cell, it's a great little
Speaker 1: house for it. And they're little factories. They make all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff we need in chemical reactions to synthesize drugs,
Speaker 1: so they help in all sorts of ways. So up
Speaker 1: with plants, yes, but not just plants chuck, Not just
Speaker 1: plants that we might like to just chew on once
Speaker 1: in a while. Like Valerian right, but also poisons. For
Speaker 1: for just as long as um medicinal plants have been
Speaker 1: used as drugs, we've also used poisons as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that papyrus, uh you were talking about from lux Or,
Speaker 1: Egypt that listed all the drugs and plant based drugs,
Speaker 1: it also listed a lot of poisons and a lots
Speaker 1: of a lot of antidotes to those poisons. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I mean, once we figured out there's such thing as poison,
Speaker 1: we started looking for ways to cure them, right, And
Speaker 1: that kind of follows your your logic that, um, there's
Speaker 1: you know, there's an antidote to every poison, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: for every malady. I believe that, And not because of
Speaker 1: any like deep research, but just because of things like this,
Speaker 1: and because I think the earth is structured that way. Balance, right.
Speaker 1: But even before that um homeostasis, Yes, even before that
Speaker 1: papyrus though about years before there is a cham i
Speaker 1: Egyptian pharaoh named Many's and he was the first person
Speaker 1: documented to conduct research into poisons because they kill people
Speaker 1: with poison for years. Socrates was famously killed in BC.
Speaker 1: That's the fourth century. I wonder how they first discovered
Speaker 1: that some poisons could actually heal you. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe by killing someone. Maybe right before they die they
Speaker 1: were like, geez, my back feels great all of a sudden, right,
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, then they die. Yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: just an idea. Um. We have had a lot of
Speaker 1: hair brain ideas of what can cure you, like, um,
Speaker 1: whiskey to cure a snake bite, right, if you're in
Speaker 1: the Old West, pour some whiskey on it. Right. So
Speaker 1: in the nine twenties some Brazilian um researchers put that
Speaker 1: to the test and found that not only is it
Speaker 1: patently untrue, but it actually makes things worse. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: speeds up the blood flow. Yeah, the alcohol does, so
Speaker 1: the delivery of the venom is just much quicker. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the whiskey remedy I would choose is here,
Speaker 1: drink a lot of this because you've been bitten by
Speaker 1: a snake and you're gonna die, right, so you might
Speaker 1: as well just numb the pain. And no one, no
Speaker 1: one ever had a patient where it actually worked. They
Speaker 1: just heard of a patient where it worked. That's right, right, Um.
Speaker 1: But the same Brazilian doctors came up with a way
Speaker 1: too curious snake bite, didn't they. Yeah, and this is
Speaker 1: amazing to me too. Everyone knows about anti vennon, which
Speaker 1: most people call anti venom. It is but although I
Speaker 1: think I've seen venom is acceptable now because so many
Speaker 1: people use it or something, well, some of our linguists
Speaker 1: friends and more progressive ones are like, just let language
Speaker 1: to go where it's going exactly, um decimate for instance. Uh,
Speaker 1: what they found out was they can use poison to
Speaker 1: fight poison. So by injecting a snake's venom into something
Speaker 1: of large that can take it, like a horse, they
Speaker 1: would build up an immune system. I bet there's some
Speaker 1: trial in air there too, but I can't you just
Speaker 1: see where they're like they inject the horses some venom
Speaker 1: and go around to its face and punch in there.
Speaker 1: So they would inject it into the horse, punch them
Speaker 1: in the face, and then the horse would eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: build up an immunity and produce antibodies called anti venom,
Speaker 1: and then they would extract that from the horse the
Speaker 1: hemoglobe in front of the blood. Now we got an
Speaker 1: anti evnom that we can use on humans. And so
Speaker 1: those the anti event and those anybody's when somebody is
Speaker 1: bit by a snake, when use the ant evnin that's
Speaker 1: derived from that snake snake's venom. Uh those anybody's go
Speaker 1: into too, the human find the anybody's find the venom
Speaker 1: and cling to it so that you can't do anything.
Speaker 1: It's like off me, no, I'll never let you go.
Speaker 1: And I want to know how that first started to
Speaker 1: That's who was the first person who thought maybe this
Speaker 1: poison that kills us can heal us. These Brazilian doctors
Speaker 1: were the first ones. And so let's inject into a
Speaker 1: horse and to see it's just amazing because think about it,
Speaker 1: I mean it's so massive, No that that makes sense,
Speaker 1: but just the initial idea, the spark of curiosity, which
Speaker 1: we always talk about, it's pretty amazing, gorgeous. Yeah yeah, so, um, chuck,
Speaker 1: if you this is no one knows this yet. This
Speaker 1: is the big secret. But this podcast, this episode is
Speaker 1: based on two articles. And did you find the common
Speaker 1: thread between the two articles, Um, Sean Connery Willie Nilly
Speaker 1: Willy Nilly in both articles you say that a lot though,
Speaker 1: that's I can see that. But did you know willy
Speaker 1: Nilly's hyphenated? Yeah, I thought it was capitalized like a name.
Speaker 1: Just the Willie part is capitalized willy nilly. So these
Speaker 1: Brazilian doctors figured that out right, they were not the
Speaker 1: first to figure out that, hey, this thing that kills
Speaker 1: me could also in a certain way. At the very least,
Speaker 1: this is very um uh. This part using poisons right
Speaker 1: to cure other problems is very logical. It's saying, this
Speaker 1: poison does this, and this malady does the opposite. So
Speaker 1: if you apply this poison to this malady, it should
Speaker 1: bring you back to homeostasis hopefully, which is what we're
Speaker 1: all searching for. And one of the first guys to
Speaker 1: to follow this reasoning to the very dangerous conclusion of
Speaker 1: here take this deadly nightshade um was a Scottish researcher
Speaker 1: named Thomas Frasier. Are you gonna try this word? Uh?
Speaker 1: Setal colin stays inhibitor. Wow, thank you you practice that one.
Speaker 1: That was the first time I said it out loud,
Speaker 1: although I mouthed it a few times. Well, he's atropine
Speaker 1: as that thing that you just said that's found in
Speaker 1: deadly nightshade belladonna very potent hallucinogen um, very dangerous poison
Speaker 1: as well. And this atropine, which is an active ingredient
Speaker 1: and contains an alkaloid that this UM, Thomas Fraser figured out,
Speaker 1: combats the UM the effects of antrax. Yeah, so antrax
Speaker 1: and saran gas similarly, they're both nerve toxins and the
Speaker 1: way that they kill you this is horrible. I know,
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. So, like you have this thing called a
Speaker 1: setal colin stairs and uh, it's a normal it's a
Speaker 1: normal enzyme in your body. That UM basically tells your
Speaker 1: neurons to fire, your nerves fire because it says, hey,
Speaker 1: go fire UM, and it breaks down naturally. What saren
Speaker 1: and antrax do is they prevent it from being broken
Speaker 1: out and it just hangs out in your synapses and
Speaker 1: tells your nerves to keep firing and firing and firing,
Speaker 1: and your body just overloads on electrical charges and you
Speaker 1: die very painfully, very painfully because you feel everything because
Speaker 1: all the nerves in your body are firing way more
Speaker 1: than they should be. UM. So what what Scottish physician
Speaker 1: Thomas Fraser figured out is that atropine is an acetal
Speaker 1: colline stays inhibitor, so it goes in and basically binds
Speaker 1: the receptors where the acetal colling stays would normally bind.
Speaker 1: It's that itself and hence atropine. This poison can prevent
Speaker 1: the effects of antrax and saren and that's still used today.
Speaker 1: Ironically from the Deadly nightshade plant. The whole concept of
Speaker 1: using poisonous medicine is just dripping with irony. It is
Speaker 1: it is Josh. Another thing they're doing these days at
Speaker 1: the University of Buffalo is they are using um chilan
Speaker 1: tarantula rose tarantula to combat heart attack death. So cell
Speaker 1: walls have these little channels that open when the cell stretches,
Speaker 1: and they basically helped to contract and release. Your heart
Speaker 1: muscles are probably just contract well. They they channel the
Speaker 1: ions through. These are ion channels. The ions give it
Speaker 1: the electrical signal, so it's part of the pumping, right.
Speaker 1: But if these things get too wide, there will be
Speaker 1: too many positive ions, and that is basically what could
Speaker 1: potentially lead to a heart attack because it throws off
Speaker 1: the rhythm, and your heart attack is is just um
Speaker 1: a rhythmic heartbeat. So this tarantula of enom binds to
Speaker 1: these channels and blocks it from passing through and potentially
Speaker 1: saves people from heart attacks. Tarantula in them. Yeah, and scorpions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I told you that I knew someone who was undergoing
Speaker 1: that therapy. We talked about that in the most with
Speaker 1: the most venomous creature on what we did. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I tried to find research on him today to see
Speaker 1: if he is still fighting his fight with cancer, and
Speaker 1: I could not find out. But there's a guy I
Speaker 1: could ask and I got a lot of hope. This
Speaker 1: guy's a big inspiration for me. Well, it's good. Let
Speaker 1: everybody know. I will unless it's bad news and then
Speaker 1: I will just not speak of it. But what we
Speaker 1: were talking about is scorpion venom UH is being used
Speaker 1: to treat in his case, brain brain cancer, the Israeli
Speaker 1: yellow scorpion, and it has a protein that binds itself
Speaker 1: to UH cancer cells found in glioma's and that is
Speaker 1: brain cancer actually, and it it basically keeps it from
Speaker 1: replicating itself, keeps he cells from spreading. Well it does.
Speaker 1: And they also figured out that you can attach a
Speaker 1: UM basically a radioactive iodine to this venom, the protein
Speaker 1: found in the venom, and so the venom goes and
Speaker 1: seeks out the glioma and it brings with it along
Speaker 1: for the ride this radioactive iodine and as we all know,
Speaker 1: cancer cells don't like radiation, so it basically seeks in destroys.
Speaker 1: It's like a vehicle for it. It is. Is this
Speaker 1: the iron oxide nanoparticles? I don't know? All right, here's
Speaker 1: the deal. This is what I got. Chlorotoxin is the
Speaker 1: chemical that affects the protein, and the protein is what
Speaker 1: helps spread the cancer. This is new. I think they
Speaker 1: have a new study where they got chemically bonded iron
Speaker 1: oxide nanoparticles. They put that with the lab made version
Speaker 1: of the chlorotoxin and they created these nanoprobes. Each nanoprobe
Speaker 1: can carry twenty chlorotoxin molecules. Did they paint like that's
Speaker 1: basically what it is. So it's tumor cell uptakes a
Speaker 1: single nanoparticle. It's absorbing a lot of this chlorotoxin it once.
Speaker 1: So basically they did this on on mice and they
Speaker 1: found that with the nanoparticles that there are the nanoprobes
Speaker 1: that they're using, um it fights the tumor by percent
Speaker 1: compared to of just the venom. So I guess they've
Speaker 1: given it a little super car. They can hold a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff in the trunk. That is really cool. Yeah, good.
Speaker 1: Up with mice, hunt, up with mice, up with scorpion venom,
Speaker 1: down with cancer? Right, Well, you got anything else? I
Speaker 1: do not. I don't either, Chuck. I think let's turn
Speaker 1: out better than I thought. Oh yeah, I had this
Speaker 1: turned out exactly how I hoped it would. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna be great and it was.
Speaker 1: That was very nice. Uh. If you want to check
Speaker 1: out these two articles, you can type in poison medicine
Speaker 1: and plant medicine into the search bar how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com. That will bring both of them up, along
Speaker 1: with a bunch of other cool stuff in our wonderful
Speaker 1: search page. Um. And since I said search bar, you
Speaker 1: know that means it's time for what they spook question
Speaker 1: and an answer session. We do this from time to time, Josh,
Speaker 1: we throw it on Facebook. He ask us anything. We'll
Speaker 1: zip through as many of these as we can the
Speaker 1: next couple of episodes. I like how people do ask
Speaker 1: us anything and then we ignore it a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Save these, by the way, because we may not be
Speaker 1: done with these. I printed them out for us. Go ahead,
Speaker 1: you take the first one. Ah. This one's from Cyrus
Speaker 1: Brojas at the time when it pronounced his name. Uh,
Speaker 1: do you guys really have cubes right next to each
Speaker 1: other at the office? Not only do we have cubes
Speaker 1: right next to each other? Now, Chuck, you moved and
Speaker 1: we're like, we don't share a wall anymore, but there's
Speaker 1: nothing but open space between us. Yeah, I'm behind you
Speaker 1: and you are behind me. We're like five ft from
Speaker 1: one another. So I you did not like it first?
Speaker 1: It was not so I disliked it. It It was just weird, man,
Speaker 1: It's so weird. Um. So now I spend my days
Speaker 1: is kind of staring at Chuck while he researches and things. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: This from Emily Tran, What has been your most interesting
Speaker 1: or memorable dream to date? Um? I, Emily, have celebrity
Speaker 1: dreams all the time where I am really good buddies
Speaker 1: with Larry David or Jack Black, whoever my heroes are,
Speaker 1: and they're really realistic and always wake up and and
Speaker 1: very disappointed. Huh that that's not the case. You have?
Speaker 1: You had some friendships with some of your heroes these days? Think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but not Larry David yet. Maybe one day, maybe one day. Um,
Speaker 1: you got a memorable dream? Yeah, I do. I don't
Speaker 1: remember the dream but um, I'm gonna bring you me
Speaker 1: in here on this one. She tells me that for
Speaker 1: three nights in a row, I would sit up and
Speaker 1: point like at the ceiling, be like, what's that kid
Speaker 1: doing up there? And she'd be like, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? Look? And there'd be nothing there, of course,
Speaker 1: and she'd be like, what do you mean? And I thing,
Speaker 1: let's go back this week. I have no recollection of it.
Speaker 1: Whatsoever your house might be haunted, dudes, I have no
Speaker 1: idea what that dream was or anything like that. So,
Speaker 1: but there's kids like in our ceiling. It's scored three
Speaker 1: nights in the run, Tom Blake, there's a bustle in
Speaker 1: my head, drow. What should I do? I think everyone
Speaker 1: knows the answer. Don't be alarmed? Yeah, technically that's the
Speaker 1: first step, though, That's like, first, don't be alarmed, then
Speaker 1: something right? So what comes after that? I don't know.
Speaker 1: We not to ask Jimmy Page or maybe Robert Playing
Speaker 1: wrote that. I say, go back inside, go into your
Speaker 1: house and beware the child on the ceiling. What country
Speaker 1: would you like to live in other than the States.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to live in Spain. I think Spain
Speaker 1: would be really neat to live in, although their government
Speaker 1: is in so much turmoil and they have like a
Speaker 1: whole separatist region. Um, if everybody could just mellow out
Speaker 1: in Spain, I I I would drop out. You never
Speaker 1: hear from me again. I'd be on some island or something.
Speaker 1: Would you do island living? I could do island living
Speaker 1: as well, if they had electricity and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: like it has to be a rich guy's island. A
Speaker 1: rich guy's island. Yeah. Um, let me see what is
Speaker 1: your favorite thing? This is Jason Carpenter. What is your
Speaker 1: favorite thing a listener has ever sent you in the mail?
Speaker 1: Beer ranks pretty high there. Um, beat Jerky, little little
Speaker 1: bit sweets. I always like seeing that package, right, the
Speaker 1: honeycombs one. Did you have those? Yeah? That's because my
Speaker 1: all time favorite little bit sweets? Candy coffee. You've gotten
Speaker 1: coffee getting coffee? Yeah? The beat Jerky was really high
Speaker 1: up there. It's like buds, smoked meats or something. Since
Speaker 1: from a listener ound in California. Oh that lady that
Speaker 1: printed her photographs on the paper that she made. That
Speaker 1: that was pretty neat. Yeah, we get lots of cool stuff.
Speaker 1: It's I don't want to hurt people's fee mugs were
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. I have still use that unicorn tears. I
Speaker 1: like the Joe Garden's book. Yeah, that was nice. We
Speaker 1: get a bunch of cool stuff. It's tots are really
Speaker 1: separated out because we've gotten some cool postcards even all right,
Speaker 1: And I want to say my last one, Um, the
Speaker 1: last one I rose from Janetsey Patrick. I realized I
Speaker 1: forgot to ask her to tell her that. Tell her? Yeah,
Speaker 1: how about one more each? Uh? Classic debate Power to
Speaker 1: be Invisible or Fly? Um? I would fly. I don't
Speaker 1: think i'd want to know what most people have to
Speaker 1: say about me when I'm not around. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: fly too, because that means I wouldn't have to fly
Speaker 1: commercially anymore, which is something I hate passionately. And that one,
Speaker 1: by the way, was um, Shanna McCann, thanks for that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna finish up with Melissa Rosenthal. When you were children,
Speaker 1: what were your favorite books? Um? I am going to
Speaker 1: say generally anything by shel Silverstein. When I was young, young,
Speaker 1: into my little tween years, I got really into bloom
Speaker 1: County the comic, got all those books, and then my
Speaker 1: favorite book, though the first book I ever read, really read,
Speaker 1: was when I was like eight or nine. I read
Speaker 1: The Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper and it was released in
Speaker 1: nineteen eight. Award winning children's book about these mice that
Speaker 1: live in Macy's in New York. Sounds cool. Santa Claus
Speaker 1: is kidnapped and they have to figure it out and
Speaker 1: track of the case. Why is everybody always kidnapedything? I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I have no idea why this hasn't
Speaker 1: been like a Disney movie. It was excellent. I read
Speaker 1: it every year for like seven to twelve nice and
Speaker 1: it was really good. What's yours? Uh? Probably my favorite
Speaker 1: little kid's book was Huper Humperdinck not Him, which is
Speaker 1: uh in that Dr Seuss camp but not a Doctor
Speaker 1: Seusee book, you know what I'm talking about. Um. I
Speaker 1: read a lot of Richard Scary and Barren Stain Bears,
Speaker 1: and then as I got a little older, I reade
Speaker 1: Ramona Quimby books for years. Those never read those. We
Speaker 1: both did Encyclopedia Brown too. Yeah, it's cool. I'll always
Speaker 1: remember he knew that that one kid was fake crying,
Speaker 1: and that he was the culprit because the kid put
Speaker 1: fake tears like on the outside of his eyes, but
Speaker 1: you always try from the inside. Yeah, what a dumb kid.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows that, but a lot of the kids see
Speaker 1: grapple with were pretty stupid. Yeah that's true. I'd like
Speaker 1: to read this today and see fucking figure him out. Oh, Betty,
Speaker 1: just be like, I can't read this, you think. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: if you have questions for us, you can always post
Speaker 1: them on Facebook, Facebook, dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. UM.
Speaker 1: You can also tweet to us at s y s
Speaker 1: K podcast and UM. You can reach us regular snail
Speaker 1: email at stuff podcast. At how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics, is
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
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