This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
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Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#2[deleted]
Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#3Very interesting. It was around the same time as the discovery of penicillin. Were there other fungal medicines discover around that time? I believe statins and Cyclosporine were discovered much later.
A chemical from the fungus needed to react with a chemical from the clover. Either we got lucky (and the cows unlucky) that the fungus grew on the clover, instead of some plant with negligible amounts of coumarin, or else there are lots of other medically interesting combinations just out there in the environment that we haven't noticed because the necessary organisms don't interact often. Given the unimaginable numbers of naturally occurring biological chemicals out there, I'm guessing it wasn't luck, and the combinatorics made it inevitable.
It's also interesting how an attempted suicide by rat poison led to demonstration of an effective treatment for overdose that eventually led to its use as a medicine.
Though, minor nit about the second paragraph: a cow is a mature female bovine. I doubt any of the investigated deaths were cows that had undergone castration.
Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#4Very interesting. It was around the same time as the discovery of penicillin. Were there other fungal medicines discover around that time? I believe statins and Cyclosporine were discovered much later. A chemical from the fungus needed to react with a chemical from the clover. Either we got lucky (and the cows unlucky) that the fungus grew on the clover, instead of some plant with negligible amounts of coumarin, or e…
[deleted]
Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#5In a similar (even stranger?) vein, in the 1950s there were cyclops baby sheep related to maternal consumption of wild corn lillies. Many years later this led to discovery of the sonic hedgehog pathway and related targeted inhibitors like vismodegib and sonidegib.
Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#6Very interesting. It was around the same time as the discovery of penicillin. Were there other fungal medicines discover around that time? I believe statins and Cyclosporine were discovered much later. A chemical from the fungus needed to react with a chemical from the clover. Either we got lucky (and the cows unlucky) that the fungus grew on the clover, instead of some plant with negligible amounts of coumarin, or e…
Maybe in ordinary conversation cow is like geese. A goose is female and a gander a male of geese but most people use goose for the kind of animal.
Kids know what “cows say”, they’d look at you weird if you asked what do bulls (or cattle) say.
But as you say, a castrated cow does sound odd.
Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#7In a similar (even stranger?) vein, in the 1950s there were cyclops baby sheep related to maternal consumption of wild corn lillies. Many years later this led to discovery of the sonic hedgehog pathway and related targeted inhibitors like vismodegib and sonidegib. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopamine
Today I learned of the hedgehog signalling pathway, and its sonic variant. No, the OP wasn't making a subtle joke.
Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#8In a similar (even stranger?) vein, in the 1950s there were cyclops baby sheep related to maternal consumption of wild corn lillies. Many years later this led to discovery of the sonic hedgehog pathway and related targeted inhibitors like vismodegib and sonidegib. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopamine
Today I learned of the hedgehog signalling pathway, and its sonic variant. No, the OP wasn't making a subtle joke.
Was this the genesis of the game's name?
(Question is serious, but pun intended, sorry)
Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Today I learned of the hedgehog signalling pathway, and its sonic variant. No, the OP wasn't making a subtle joke.
Was this the genesis of the game's name? (Question is serious, but pun intended, sorry)
No. The pathway is named after the character.
Re: This month in 1939: How dead cattle led to the discovery of warfarin
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Today I learned of the hedgehog signalling pathway, and its sonic variant. No, the OP wasn't making a subtle joke.
Was this the genesis of the game's name? (Question is serious, but pun intended, sorry)
Other way around. Wikipedia has a good summary.
It’s difficult telling parents that the cause of their child’s holoprosencephaly is a gene called sonic hedgehog