So it seems like there's an obvious omission in this story... what's the deadliest poison?
Botulinum, I'd guess (among natural toxins). A casual Google seems to indicate I'm right.
World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#22Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#23I worked at an aquarium store (probably one of the ones mentioned in the story) for a long time, and was a pretty experienced and dedicated reefkeeper at my peak, and I never knew this. This situation must be incredibly unlikely though because I've dealt with thousands of Zooanthids and hundreds of customers over the years I never had anything like this happen nor heard about it from anybody. However, I certainly wis…
The advice I always see online about handling zoanthids is "always wear gloves". I've always done so, but seen plenty of people who don't.
On the other hand, there are plenty of other (often hidden) things in your average reef aquarium that can potentially injure you and leave your local emergency department at a loss. People don't normally get stung by fireworms (or whatever) 5000 miles away from the tropical ocean.
Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#24Marginally related, the case of Karen Wetterhahn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was accidentally poisoned in her lab by a few drops of the toxic, colorless compound, which penetrated her protective glove... Wetterhahn recalled that she had spilled several drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of the pipette onto her latex gloved hand. Tests later showed that t…
IIRC it took like six months to kill her though.
Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#25Marginally related, the case of Karen Wetterhahn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was accidentally poisoned in her lab by a few drops of the toxic, colorless compound, which penetrated her protective glove... Wetterhahn recalled that she had spilled several drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of the pipette onto her latex gloved hand. Tests later showed that t…
IIRC it took like six months to kill her though.
It's slow acting, but close to 100% lethal, and you don't die nicely.
IMHO, that's just about the most horrible combination imaginable.
Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#26second deadlist in the natural world, not overall. a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived the real deadly biological systems don't even give you a chance to ask if that is a missile coming over the hill
This was explained though, he received an aerosoled version of the drug, which was a very, very small dose, and not directly into the blood stream. Dipping a spear into one of these things then poking a living animal and that being is dead, quickly.
> he received an aerosoled version of the drug
If you are talking about threat from terrorism, then as an aerosol is the only effective way to distribute it.
and if you were doing that, even something simple like Sarin is an order of magnitude stronger than this stuff
the agents that were being produced during the cold war by third-world countries are again stronger than sarin and probably easy to make for a small group
Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#27So it seems like there's an obvious omission in this story... what's the deadliest poison?
Botulinum, I'd guess (among natural toxins). A casual Google seems to indicate I'm right.
Yup. 10x more toxic than palytoxin.
And we inject it in ourselves voluntarily.
Humans are such funny creatures.
Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#28second deadlist in the natural world, not overall. a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived the real deadly biological systems don't even give you a chance to ask if that is a missile coming over the hill
> second deadlist in the natural world, not overall.
Right. Overall it's the fourth deadliest, with an L.D.50 of 300ng/kg, behind Maitotoxin (130ng/kg), Polonium 210 (10ng/kg) and Botulinum (1ng/kg).
Is that supposed to make it better?
> a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived
A person who was poisoned with a low dose of aerosolized palytoxin survived. Injected, you would not stand a chance.
Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#29I worked at an aquarium store (probably one of the ones mentioned in the story) for a long time, and was a pretty experienced and dedicated reefkeeper at my peak, and I never knew this. This situation must be incredibly unlikely though because I've dealt with thousands of Zooanthids and hundreds of customers over the years I never had anything like this happen nor heard about it from anybody. However, I certainly wis…
The advice I always see online about handling zoanthids is "always wear gloves". I've always done so, but seen plenty of people who don't. On the other hand, there are plenty of other (often hidden) things in your average reef aquarium that can potentially injure you and leave your local emergency department at a loss. People don't normally get stung by fireworms (or whatever) 5000 miles away from the tropical ocean.
From the Wikipedia article [1]:
"each gram of the offending zoanthid contained enough venom to kill at least 125 grown men"
Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#30To get a scale of things I just had to find out what the weight of a typical grain of salt is. http://answers.wikia.com/wiki/How_much_does_a_grain_of_salt_...
If one goes by the minimum value which is 0.05mg, an equivalent amount of this stuff can kill 2,500 human sized mice with 50% probability. That's potent stuff.
Well, had written 'people' in place of 'human sized mice' but the LD-50 values used were those for mice, so it is only fair that I measure in "human sized mice" units.